SANTA     CRUZ 


Gift  oi 
Lem  C.    Brown 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 

AND   OTHER  STORIES 


DEGARMO'S  WIFE 

AND  OTHER  STORIES 

BY 

DAVID  GRAHAM  PHILLIPS 


NEW     YORK 

GROSSET    &    DUNLAP 

PUBLISHERS 


COPYRIGHT,  1913,  BY 
D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 


Copyright,  1911-1912,  by  CURRIER  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 
Copyright,  1911,  by  AMERICAN  HOME  MAGAZINE  COMPANY 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


PS 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

DEGARMO'S  WIFE 3 

ENID 

COURTSHIP 115 

MARRIAGE 154 

LOVE 195 

RED  ROSES  AND  WHITE       ....     •'""'•"""".  235 


DEGARMO'S  WIFE 


DEGARMO'S  WIFE 


THE  Degarmos  had  lived  at  Saint  Chris 
topher  from  its  beginnings;  and  the 
French  had  founded  it  away  back  in 
the  eighteenth  century  as  a  trading  post,  the  third 
in  importance  in  their  frontier  chain  from  Que 
bec  to  New  Orleans.  There  was  a  time  when 
Saint  X  was  larger  than  New  York  or  Philadel 
phia,  and  much  farther  advanced  in  civilization. 
The  first  American  Degarmo  had  dwelt  in  its 
most  pretentious  house.  There  had  been  a  Rev 
olutionary  General  Degarmo,  an  1812  General 
Degarmo,  a  Civil  War  General  Degarmo,  one 
of  the  handsomest  and  most  martial  looking  in 
the  Indiana  contingent.  There  had  been  Gov 
ernors  Degarmo,  United  States  Senators  De 
garmo;  and  colonels  and  judges  and  reverends, 
more  than  two  score. 

3 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


For  nearly  two  centuries  the  Degarmos  had 
been  rich;  for  nearly  two  centuries  they  had  been 
looked  up  to  by  those  who  were  not  rich  and  by 
the  newly  rich.  The  Degarmos  were  at  once 
the  pride  and  the  chagrin  of  Saint  X — the  pride 
because  they  were  real  aristocrats  and  because 
their  house  was  a  palace,  would  have  made  a  re 
spectable  showing  even  among  the  mansions  of 
the  autocracy  in  the  big  cities ;  the  chagrin  because 
they  were  no  longer  really  residents  of  Saint  X, 
but  had  become  expatriates,  dwellers  in  New 
York  and  London  and  Paris.  The  main  line 
of  the  family  had  dwindled  to  a  sister  and  a 
brother. 

The  sister  was  Mrs.  Arthur  Houghton,  a 
leader  of  fashionable  society  in  the  East.  She 
rarely  came  to  Saint  X,  then  only  on  business; 
she  always  so  arranged  it  that  she  would  arrive 
in  the  morning  and  leave  the  same  night,  and 
would  be  too  busy  in  the  intervening  hours  to  ex 
change  even  the  hastiest  civilities  with  the  eager 
celebrities  of  the  local  "haut  monde."  The 
brother  was  Joe — "young  Joe"  everybody  called 

4 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


him ;  for  unlike  Saint  X's  bachelors,  and  married 
men,  too,  of  thirty-five  and  beyond,  he  was  still 
a  young  man  In  looks,  in  manner  and  in  thought 
Joe  came  twice  a  year  to  Saint  X,  except  when 
he  happened  to  prolong  his  annual  stay  abroad. 
He  came  about  the  family  estate  and  inter 
ests;  and  he  usually  stayed  a  month.  He  kept 
house  in  the  west  wing  of  the  big  Degarmo  home 
stead. 

It  was  on  one  of  these  semi-annual  visits  that  he 
met  Norma  Murdock  and  became  engaged  to  her 
— this  though  Mrs.  Murdock  and  all  the  Saint  X 
mothers  with  marriageable  daughters  cried  out 
against  it;  for  Norma  had  just  turned  seventeen, 
and  Joe  was  at  least  a  year  older  than  her 
mother.  But  bitter  though  Mrs.  Murdochs  op 
position  was,  neither  Joe  nor  "the  child"  heeded 
it.  They  knew  it  was  a  matter  of  words  only, 
also  that  its  real  origin  was  anger  because  she 
was  awakening  to  the  appalling  fact  that  she  had 
let  herself  become  a  middle-aged  woman  while 
her  husband  had  remained  a  young  man.  Nor 
did  Joe  dread  Saint  X's  outraged  sense  of  de- 

5 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


cency;  he  understood  it,  also.  His  one  fear  was 
his  sister,  Antoinette.  He  knew  that  she  would 
be  furious.  Not  because  the  Murdock  wealth 
was  new;  it  had  not  been  by  blind  chance  that 
the  Degarmos  had  kept  rich  for  so  many  genera 
tions  without  work  and  without  commercial  abil 
ity.  They  had  always  married  money,  and  had 
had  pride  enough  to  feel  that  their  aristocratic 
aroma  was  sufficiently  strong  to  overpower,  if 
not  to  extinguish  quite,  any  unpleasant  odors 
from  money  of  however  squalid  origin.  No;  it 
was — as  Joe  well  knew — the  danger  to  sister 
Tony's  dreams  of  a  highly  aristocratic  marriage 
for  him,  perhaps  with  a  foreign  woman  of  title, 
that  would  set  her  to  sneering  and  scheming 
against  the  marriage. 

When  he  wrote  Tony  the  news  of  his  engage 
ment,  he  put  it  as  if  he  expected  her  to  be  de 
lighted.  But — "She'll  be  on  by  the  first  train 
after  she  gets  my  letter,"  he  said  to  himself. 
And  so  confident  was  he,  that  on  the  third  morn 
ing  after  the  dispatch  of  his  letter  he  said  to  his 
valet,  "I  think  Mrs.  Houghton  will  be  here  by 

6 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


the  early  train.  Send  a  trap  to  meet  her  and 
have  breakfast  for  two." 

At  a  little  after  nine  Mrs.  Houghton,  shown 
into  the  dining  room,  found  him  seated  at  a  table 
drawn  up  to  the  window  and  laid  for  two.  He 
looked  exceedingly  luxurious  in  white  silk  crepe 
pajamas  and  a  heavily  embroidered  white  silk 
dressing  gown.  "Hope  I  didn't  drag  you  out  of 
bed,"  said  she. 

"Oh,  no,"  replied  he.  "I  always  get  up  early 
out  here.  But  I  don't  finish  dressing  until  after 
breakfast.  The  day's  got  to  be  filled  in  some 
how."  He  looked  at  her  admiringly.  "How 
ever  did  you  contrive  to  look  so  fresh,  just  from 
a  train  overnight?" 

She  did  indeed  look  fresh,  the  most  attractive 
type  of  New  York's  luxurious  class.  She  was 
nearly  forty  years  old;  she  seemed,  even  in  strong 
daylight,  hardly  so  much  as  thirty.  It  was  the 
sole  duty  of  no  less  than  four  busy  servants  to 
take  care  of  her  personally — her  clothes,  her 
skin,  her  figure,  her  hair.  On  her  laziest  day 
she  spent  at  least  five  hours  in  the  fight  for  youth; 

7 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


and  each  year  she  gave  up  a  month,  often  two, 
to  thorough  and  on  the  whole  intelligent  over 
hauling  and  repairs. 

"Why  do  most  women,  especially  of  the  middle 
and  lower  classes,  let  themselves  go  to  pieces  so 
young?'*  she  often  wondered.  "It's  really  dis 
graceful — inexcusable !  Why,  at  fifty  I  intend  to 
be  still  presentable." 

The  purpose  of  this  resolute  anticipation  of  the 
assaults  of  old  age  was  the  gratification  of  per 
sonal  vanity;  for  she  loved  neither  her  husband 
nor  any  other  man,  and  had  no  expectation  or  de 
sire  ever  to  love.  For  one  born  and  bred  in 
selfishness  her  heart  was  surprisingly  warm  and 
generous,  but  love  had  seemed  to  her  vulgar  and 
repulsive  from  the  beginning  of  the  honeymoon 
with  a  man  she  married  because  he  was  a  rich 
New  Yorker,  knowing,  and  known  of,  the  "right 
sort  of  people." 

She  delighted  in  her  good  looks,  delighted  in 
the  conquests  they  made  for  her;  but  she  dis 
dained  the  purpose  for  which  nature  had  con 
trived  those  limpid,  languorous  eyes,  and  full  red 

8 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


lips   and  rounded,   firm   cheeks   and   throat  and 
shoulders. 

"What  they  call  love  nowadays,''  she  would 
say  to  an  admirer  when  she  had  lured  him  as  far 
as  she  permitted  a  man  to  come  toward  her, 
"seems  to  me  to  put  us  on  the  level  with  the 
peasantry  and  their  animals.  I  may  be  puritanic, 
but  I  can't  get  away  from  the  ideas  our  fathers 
and  mothers  had."  And  she  did  not  in  the  least 
suspect  that  those  whom  she  despised  as  coarse 
might  have  the  right  to  retort  upon  her  for  using 
the  allurements  of  passion  to  ensnare  food  for 
an  appetite  baser  than  passion — vanity. 

"Fresh!"  she  exclaimed,  at  her  brother's  com 
pliment.  "I  feel  hot  and  shriveled,  inside  and 
out.  I  didn't  sleep  last  night.  As  soon  as  Dick 
ens  leaves  us  alone  I'll  tell  you  why."  And  when 
Dickens  had  brought  the  coffee — a  huge  silver 
tray  with  great  pots  and  bowls  of  antique  silver 
on  the  embroidered  linen — and  had  withdrawn, 
she  began:  "This  engagement  of  yours — it's 
only  a  temporary  affair?" 

"Probably,"  replied  her  brother,  indifferently. 
9 


DEGARMCXS  WIFE 


prefer  tea?"* 


Coke.     Wbj  OB  earth  are  joar 


—  nrv^.    r-  j--  ^••^•»  .  JLJ 

•  •  .    •       .._;r_  -  _    _ 


ta&cd:     "I 
cuTt  get 


I 
die 


::: 


jammauTjJ    YOH  don't  want  dnkfrea?" 


He  fait  off  the  cad  of  a 
Md.  fid  said 

£1;  :i-_c;:i 


10 


DEGARM05  WIFE 


"Me,  To*y.- 

"Batyoo  know  that,  if  yew  many  die 

<-...-        _-  -9H    *^m»-  J^MW  •*•          H^rf        tfcfaa 

tore,  you  it  gee  wu  H-    xmnt— «MCM 
iecmdy.    Finally  he  said:    "Good  coiee,  n't 

»     ^>         1    aK^KT-^i^    •••    -nnr   WTf—    ^^ff^^^mjt    wmwmx*&£    -9fl*W#^H^^V    I 

wanted.     I  want  iier.     To  get  her  Tvc  got  ID 
•any  her.    Afterward •"    He 


•v4^L       ^       ^^iv^^tf^H^^       J^^— 1^  .      . 

~~-    .  _  •  I  »L  t  _    ^.    IL  i  I     •»  .  "  .     -     -_.        _:    :.:  _c- 

f  «_ m^        -   ^«-**  _     _  •  «        "V-««      - "  - 

MC  1  iuppcu  to  want  tms  girt,     xov  ooo  t  m&- 
TGHT      Too  can't. 


left  ont  of  yon.    It  wasn't  kit  ont  of 

I:_  ^        f» j  » «        _  ^  _  •  - 
nmst  say  id  name  taagneu  i 

had  told  me  Fd  he  a  stree  to  a  fancy  for 


ffccy  say  sk  looks  the  image  of  1 
at  the  same  age,     Hot  means"— T< 
II 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


made  several  large  vague  gestures,  indicating  in 
crease  of  bulk.  "If  you'll  put  off  the  marriage  a 
little  while,  Joe,"  she  added,  "you'll  break  the 
engagement.  Fat  is  so — so  common!" 

"It's  worse  than  common,"  replied  Joe.  "It's 
repulsive.  I  often  look  at  her  and  see  her  as  she'll 
be  ten  years  from  now."  He  made  a  grimace. 
"But  it's  no  use.  There  she  is,  and — I  must  have 
her.  I  can't  cure  myself.  It's  a  pity  I  was 
brought  up  to  be  so  selfish.  I've  no  self-control 
when  I  see  anything  I  want." 

His  sister  looked  dejected.  "Joe,  I  really  be 
lieve  you  do  seriously  intend  to  marry  her." 

"You  may  as  well  resign  yourself  to  it." 

"But  what  are  you  going  to  do  about — about 
i> 

Joe's  eyes  stopped  her.  "The  past  is — past," 
said  he.  "I'm  going  to  marry  Norma  Murdock." 

"What  a  disgust  you'll  have  six  weeks  after," 
she  mused  aloud.  "No  doubt  she's  in  love  with 
you-" 

Degarmo  pushed  back  his  chair,  rose,  drew 
the  cord  of  his  white  silk  robe  a  little  more  firmly, 

12 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


lit  a  cigarette  and  walked  up  and  down  several 
times  before  replying.  "No,"  said  he,  finally, 
with  a  sort  of  ironic  bitterness.  "Whoever  heard 
of  a  girl  of  her  age  being  in  love  with  a  real  per 
son?  She's  in  love  with  a  purely  imaginary  per 
son  whom  she  sees  or  fancies  she  sees  when  she 
sees  or  thinks  of  me."  He  paused  before  his  sis 
ter.  "I  wish  she  were  in  love  with  me." 

Tony  looked  up  at  him  and  laughed.  "You 
know  you  don't.  No  man  of  your  experience 
ever  wished  to  be  bored  with  love." 

"Nevertheless,  I  do  wish  it.  Tony,  I'm  mad 
about  her.  I'd  never  dream  of  letting  her  see  it, 
or  she'd  walk  on  me  and  kick  me  aside.  I  want 
her  love,  yet  to  keep  her  I've  got  to  pose  as  the 
grand,  superior,  indifferent,  man-of-the-world, 
hero-of-a-novel  whom  she  worships.  Me  she'd 
despise  as — as  much  as  I  despise  myself." 

His  sister  studied  him  with  amused  pity.  "No, 
I  don't  understand,"  she  said.  "And  I'm  glad 
I  don't.  Can't  you  see  that  a  few  weeks,  maybe 
only  a  few  days  after  you've  tied  yourself  to  her, 
you'll  not  care  a  rap  what  she  thinks  of  you,  but 

13 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


will  be  wondering  how  you  could  ever  have  been 
such  an  ass  as  to  think  you  cared  ?" 

"You  imagine  she's  like  her  mother,"  replied 
he.  "Believe  me,  she's  not.  She  looks  like  her 
mother,  but  she's  got  a  mind  like  her  father. 
That's  why  I  feel  uncomfortable  when  I  think 
of  what'll  happen  when  she  finds  me  out.'1 

"You  are  hopeless!"  cried  Tony.  "Hopeless! 
When  a  man  imagines  that  a  silly  little  girl  has 
intellect  because  she  has  fine  eyes  and  a  voluptu 
ous  figure,  nothing  can  be  done  with  him."  Joe 
shrugged  his  shoulders,  held  out  the  cigarette 
box. 

"Have  one?"  he  said.  Then  while  she  was 
lighting  it,  "I  wish  I  were  simply  imagining  her 
brains.  But  I'm  not.  I  ain't  in  love  with  her 
brains — I  hate  'em,  I'm  afraid  of  'em.  Possibly 
— probably — I  had  brains  to  start  "with.  But 
mine  went  to  seed  long  ago.  Her  mind  is — 
appallingly  active.  I  dread  the  time  when — when 
I  may  still  be  in  love  with  her,  while  she  has 
found  me  out,  and — and  all  that.  D — n  it,  Tony," 
he  cried  with  sudden  energy.  "I'm  jealous  even 

14 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


now  of  what  I  fear  will  happen  sooner  or  later 
after  we're  married.  I'm  nearly  twenty  years 
older  than  she — thirty-seven — older  than  her 
mother — so  few  years  younger  than  her  father 
that  I  felt — ridiculous  when  I  asked  him  for  her." 

"That's  nonsense,"  her  sister  assured  him.  "In 
marrying,  a  woman's  never  too  young  and  a  man 
never  too  old.  As  for  this  girl,  at  twenty-five 
she'll  be  fat  and  middle-aged — figure  gone — teeth 
a  bit  queer  from  maternity — a  bunch  of  wrinkles 
at  the  corner  of  either  eye — and  a  good  mother 
to  her  children — when  she's  not  too  lazy  to  see 
'em.  While  you — "  She  gave  her  brother  an 
envious  glance — uYou  men.  At  fifty  you'll  look 
just  about  as  you  do  now — a  little  more  attrac 
tive  if  possible  because  you'll  be  still  more  fasci 
natingly  indifferent  and  suggestive  of  vistas  on 
vistas  of  past  love  affairs.  You  needn't  fret  about 
her.  She's  like  her  ma;  she  can  hardly  wait  for 
marriage  to  'settle.'  ' 

"I  hope  so!"  exclaimed  he,  sincerely.  "I'd  in 
finitely  prefer  boredom  to  jealousy.  One  can  get 
away  from  boredom." 

15 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


"It'll  be  worse  than  either.  It'll  be  irritation 
against  yourself  and  against  her." 

He  tossed  his  cigarette  into  the  huge  ash  bowl 
on  his  writing  table.  His  gesture  was  a  dismissal 
of  the  subject.  "Run  along,  Tony — amuse  your 
self  downstairs,"  said  he.  "I'll  dress  and  take 
you  to  call." 

Antoinette  went,  and  her  cheerfulness  soon  re 
turned.  She  knew  the  mental  processes  of  her 
sort  of  people — how  intense  are  their  caprices, 
but  how  quickly  purpose  faints  and  expires.  She 
had  not  calculated  upon  accomplishing  much  by 
talking  against  the  engagement.  It  was  the  effect 
of  contrast  that  she  really  relied  upon. 

"Out  here,"  she  reasoned,  "he  has  lost  his 
point  of  view.  As  soon  as  he  sees  us  together, 
he'll  come  to  his  senses."  And  there  was  more 
of  shrewdness  than  of  vanity  in  the  calculation; 
for,  any  woman  who  has  not  been  "about"  can 
not  but  seem  awkward,  crude,  unformed,  beside 
a  "woman  of  the  world."  It  is  not  a  matter  of 
mannered  people,  the  manners  of  "the  world" 
seem,  and  are,  distinctly  bad.  It  is  not  a  matter 

16 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


of  dress — fashionable  women,  depending  upon 
dressmakers,  milliners  and  maids,  are  usually 
dressed  almost  sloppily  and  with  no  individuality 
of  taste.  It  is  not  a  matter  of  knowledge — that 
least  of  all;  the  fashionable  woman,  or  man,  has 
only  to  dabble  her  or  his  fingers  in  the  Pierian 
pool  to  show  how  strange  and  pleasant  its  waters 
are  to  her  or  him.  It  is,  rather,  a  matter  of  fun 
damental  self-confidence — a  certainty,  attainable 
only  by  wide  experience,  that  what  one  is  wear 
ing,  saying,  doing,  is  "all  right."  And  Joe  De- 
garmo's  sister,  a  "howling  swell"  by  birth,  by 
training,  by  marriage,  by  association,  by  fa 
miliarity  with  the  "best  society"  on  both  sides  of 
the  Atlantic,  was  past  mistress  of  the  arts  of  po 
lite  effrontery,  and  subtle  egotism  which  enables 
one  to  "put  in  their  place"  those  less  favored. 

She  vaguely  remembered  Norma  as  a 
long-legged,  long-braided,  wide-mouthed  child, 
freckled  and  frowzy,  a  tree  climber,  a  loud 
laugher,  but  looking  enough  like  Sophy  Mur- 
dock  in  her  early  married  days,  when  her  beauty 
caused  people  to  stop  and  stare,  to  make  it  cer- 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


tain  that  she  would  "take  after"  her  mother. 
Vastly  different  was  the  figure  that  emerged  from 
among  the  tall,  hooped-in  rose  bushes  at  sounds 
of  wheels  on  the  main  drive  of  the  Murdock 
place.  Joe,  a  light  in  his  eyes  that  made  his  sis 
ter  begin  to  distrust  her  estimate  of  her  hand 
some,  worldly  brother,  reined  in  and  said — care 
lessly,  yet  with  a  note  in  his  voice  which  his  sister 
had  never  heard  before.  "Hello,  Norma !  You 
remember  my  sister,  Tony?" 

Norma  turned  grave,  luminous,  searching  eyes 
upon  the  quietly  gorgeous  woman  beside  her  lover 
in  the  cart;  The  girl  had  not  a  trace  of  self- 
consciousness.  "Oh,  yes,"  she  said.  Then,  with 
a  smile  in  the  eyes  only,  "We  used  to  call  you 
Queen  Anne — and  pretended  to  dislike  you — 
though  it  was  simply  envy."  And  she  extended 
her  hand  to  Mrs.  Houghton's.  The  thin  sleeve 
of  her  blouse  did  not  conceal  the  perfection  of 
her  long,  slender  arm. 

Tony  no  longer  wondered  that  Joe  was  infatu 
ated;  she,  expert  in  the  art  of  physical  appeal  to 
men,  recognized  in  the  girl's  fresh,  radiant  loveli- 

18 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


ness  the  unadulterated  nature  on  which  her  own 
imitative  art  was  built.  This,  with  no  jealousy; 
for  she  regarded  art  as  superior  to  nature,  more 
than  making  up  in  grace  and  effective  grouping 
what  it  lacked  in  boldness  and  energy.  She  put 
on  an  expression  of  sweet,  impulsive  admiration. 
"How  lovely  you  are !"  she  exclaimed.  "The 
image  of  your  mother  at  your  age." 

But  Norma,  with  thoughts  all  upon  Joe,  merely 
said:  "Thank  you,"  as  if  she  hardly  heard. 
Then  to  Joe,  "Father  and  Charley  have  just 
gone." 

Degarmo  explained  to  his  sister:  "Mr.  Mur- 
dock  and  his  son  are  off  to  the  Northwest  and 
Canada  for  three  months'  shooting.  I'm  to  join 
them  in  September." 

Mrs  Houghton  was  rosy  with  the  rage  of  the 
expert  marksman  whose  first  shot  in  the  contest 
has  flown  wide  of  the  target.  To  the  chagrin 
of  both  the  brother  and  the  sister — for  widely 
different  reasons — Norma  kept  to  the  back 
ground  during  the  entire  call.  This  retiring  si 
lence  was  not  the  result  of  wisdom,  of  a  femi- 

19 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


ninely  crafty  refusal  to  be  drawn  into  an  unequal 
combat,  one  where  simplicity  would  surely  be 
worsted  by  worldliness;  Norma  kept  within  her 
self  simply  because  her  mind  was  so  full  of  love 
that  she  was  walking  through  life  like  a  somnam 
bulist,  avoiding  obstacles,  conversational  as  well 
as  physical,  by  instinct  only. 

On  the  way  home  Joe,  uneasily  reading  an  un 
favorable  verdict  in  Tony's  grim  silence,  at  last 
said:  "You  couldn't  judge  her  to-day.  I  never 
knew  her  to  be  so  quiet.  You'll  find  her  very 
clever,  when  she  gets  going." 

Mrs.  Houghton's  answer  was  a  lift  of  the 
brows  and  a  sarcastic  smile. 

"Don't  be  exasperated  because  she  ignored 
you." 

"Don't  talk  to  me  about  her,"  said  she,  curtly. 
"All  I've  got  to  say  is,  get  her  to  visit  New  York 
and  study  her  there.  I'll  assure  a  cure  in  two 
weeks." 

"But  the  worst  of  it  is  I  don't  want  to  be  cured. 
Besides,  she  wouldn't  go.  She  disliked  you  on 
sight.  Gad,  what  instinct  you  women  have.  She 

20 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


scented  an  enemy  instantly,  and  into  her  shell  she 
went,  with  you  rattling  your  claws  on  it,  like  a 
leopard  on  a  turtle's  back." 

Tony  frowned,  then  laughed  good-humo redly. 
"She's  better  than  I  expected,"  she  said  gener 
ously.  "But — that  doesn't  change  my  warning — 
not  a  jot!" 

"Right  you  are,"  assented  her  brother.  Then, 
into  his  face  came  the  expression  she  had  seen 
there  when  Norma,  all  in  white,  save  the  one 
big  rose  in  her  garden  hat,  appeared  among  the 
roses.  "Right  you  are,"  he  repeated.  "But, 
Tony,  IVe  got  to  have  Norma,  IVe  got  to  have 
her!" 

"No  trouble  about  getting  her.  She's  fairly 
driveling  calf-love." 

"I  wish  to  God  mine  were,"  he  muttered. 
"I'm  afraid  to  think  what  a  fatuous  fool  she  has 
made  of  me." 

He  looked  at  his  sister,  pain  in  his  eyes  and  a 
mute  appeal  for  sympathy.  And  she,  returning 
his  look,  found  that  the  passion  which  had  al 
ways  repulsed  her  when  men  exhibited  it  toward 

21 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


herself  now  seemed  a  high,  half-divine,  if  half- 
lunatic  mystery. 

"Poor  Joe!"  she  said,  softly.  "Poor  Joe!" 
she  repeated,  with  an  envious  sigh.  For,  at  the 
moment,  her  own  life  seemed  a  dreary  sham,  a 
garden  made  of  flowers — in  gold  and  silver  and 
precious  stones,  most  curiously  and  intricately 
wrought,  but  still  barren  and  scentless  artificial 
ity.  "Yes,  I  have  missed  something,"  thought 
she.  "Joe's  right;  there's  a  lack  in  me.  I've 
missed  something  and — maybe  it  was  the  best." 

Norma  was  singing  and  playing  one  of  Schu 
mann's  songs  to  Joe  as  he  smoked  on  the  bal 
cony  outside  the  music  room  windows.  The 
sound  ceased  and  an  instant  later  her  arms,  white 
and  cool  and  electric,  were  round  his  neck.  "Tell 
me,"  she  murmured,  "would  you  love  me  just 
the  same  if  I  were  homely  and — and — fat?" 

"What  put  that  into  your  head?"  he  asked. 
And  he  laughed  and  drew  her  head  down  so  that 
he  might  feel  her  cheek  against  his. 

"Would  you?" 

22 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


"Will  you  love  me  when  I'm  old  and  fat  or 
withered,  as  I'll  probably  be,  long  before  you 
show  the  least  signs  of  age?" 

"Now,  don't  evade.     Would  you?" 

"But  by  that  time  I'll  be  too  dim-eyed  to  know 
what  you  look  like  and  too  rheumatic  to  care." 

"Would  you?" 

"Don't  put  me  to  the  test."  He  laughed  care 
lessly.  "It's  one  of  those  things  one  has  no  de 
sire  to  know." 

But  she  knew  what  he  meant.  And  her  Ar- 
cady  no  longer  stretched  limitlessly  before  her. 
It  sharply  contracted  until  she  could  see,  not  ex 
actly  its  boundary,  but  the  direction  in  which  its 
boundary  lay.  "No,"  she  said,  pensively.  "You 
wouldn't.  I've  been  thinking  about  it  since — 
since  your  sister  was  here.  I'm  sure  old  age  and 
love  can't  exist  together — at  least,  not  the  kind 
of  love  I  feel  for  you  and  feel  in  you." 

His  eyes,  which  she  could  not  see,  had  the 
look  of  pain  in  them,  the  shadow  that  creeps  into 
the  happiest  moment  of  those  who  have  lived, 
and  darkens  and  saddens  and  endears  it.  His 

23 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


arms  reached  out  for  her,  to  clasp  her  lightly. 
But  the  voice  was  light  and  mocking,  as  he  said : 
"Well — what  are  you  going  to  do  about  it?" 

She  shook  her  head  slowly,  gazing  out  into 
the  starlight,  her  dimpled  elbow  in  the  bosom  of 
his  evening  shirt.  "Be  young  as  long  as  I  can — 
and  make  you  keep  young.  I  guess  there  isn't 
much  in  life  after  youth  is  gone.  Look  at  papa 
and  mama — what  do  they  get  out  of  it?" 

"But  they're  still — young." 

"Father — perhaps;  but  not  mother."  Her 
eyes  sought  his  lovingly.  "I'm  so  glad  you're 
years  older  than  I."  Her  light  fingers  caressed 
his  hair  with  its  fascinating  faint  tracings  of  sil 
ver.  "I  love  your  gray  hairs — oh,  you've  got 
lots  of  them."  She  laughed  at  him,  grew  in 
stantly  grave,  with  eyes  questioning  the  mystery 
of  the  soft  summer  night.  "Why  can't  men  love 
women  as  women  love  men?  Why  is  it  that  it's 
only  for  their  youth  that  women  are  loved?  It 
makes  life  so  sad  for  us." 

"What  do  you  love  me  for?"  asked  Degarmo, 
hesitatingly,  as  if  he  must  inquire,  though  he 
knew  the  answer  would  not  be  to  his  liking. 

24 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


She  reflected  a  moment,  then  disappeared 
through  the  open  window.  When  she  reappeared, 
she  had  a  little  book  in  her  hand.  She  stood 
where  the  light  fell  upon  her  profile  and  her 
thick  wavy  hair  and  one  bare  white  shoulder  and 
one  slim  round  arm  and  the  printed  page.  She 
read,  and  her  voice  seemed  of  the  same  substance 
as  the  starlight  and  the  wind  murmuring  among 
the  trees: 

"When  I  saw  Theseus  or  the  others,  I  felt  that 
I  would  like  to  see  them  in  the  games  or  at  war 
or  at  the  chase,  how  they  would  acquit  them 
selves.  But  when  I  saw  Hercules,  I  did  not  feel 
so.  Whether  he  sat  or  stood,  spoke  or  was  silent, 
moved  or  was  still,  whatever  he  did,  I  was  con 
tent." 

And  then  there  were  two  alone  in  the  starlight, 
their  lips  meeting,  one  of  his  hands  pressing  the 
soft  coil  of  her  hair,  the  other  upon  her  broad, 
slender  back  at  the  line  of  the  evening  bodice 
that  left  her  smooth  dimpled  shoulders  bare. 
"Whatever  you  do,  or  are,"  she  murmured,  "I 
am  content." 


i 


II 

spent  the  honeymoon  in  camp  at 
Slumber  Lake,  in  the  Adirondacks. 
After  six  weeks  her  father  came  to 
take  them  home,  as  he  had  agreed.  The  Mon 
treal  Express  dropped  his  car  on  a  siding;  Norma 
was  waiting  with  a  buckboard  to  drive  him  the 
five  miles  to  the  lake.  He  was  so  preoccupied 
with  his  own  affairs  that  he  glanced  at  her  without 
seeing  her  and  gave  her  an  embrace  and  a  kiss 
that  were  indeed  family-like  in  absent-mindedness. 

"Well,  and  how  goes  the  love-making?"  he 
asked,  as  they  set  out. 

"Oh — so — so,"  replied  she. 

"That's  good."  His  mind  was  back  upon  his 
own  affairs. 

"I've  long  felt,"  said  she,  in  her  wise  old  way 
that  had  always  amused  him,  "I've  long  felt  that 
love  is  one  of  the — one  of  the  side  issues  of  life 
— the  dessert,  perhaps — or,  maybe,  more— but 

26 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


certainly   not   the   whole    banquet — not   by    any 


means." 


As  she  had  paused,  he  saw  he  was  expected  to 
say  something.  "Really,"  said  he. 

"No,"  mused  she,  "love  is  rather  the  compass 
of  life — but  not  ship  or  voyage  or  port.  But — 
you  look  tired."  She  put  her  hand  sympatheti 
cally  on  his.  "It's  as  Joe  so  often  says.  You 
ought  to  amuse  yourself." 

"Amuse  myself?"  he  echoed  satirically.  "Why, 
I  never  learned  how." 

"Nor  any  other  man  who  ever  amounted  to 
anything,"  cried  she  with  a  sudden  change  that 
was  an  illustration  of  the  much  derided  illogic  of 
women — an  illogic  that  is  simply  a  surface  clash 
between  what  they  are  pretending  in  speech  and 
what  they  are  really  thinking  in  their  hearts. 

"What  does  Amount  to  anything'  mean?"  in 
quired  her  amused  father. 

"I  don't  know,"  confessed  she.  Then  she 
added  with  curious  emphasis.  "But  I  do  know 
what  'amount  to  nothing'  means." 

Her  father  glanced  quickly  at  her,  as  quickly 
27 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


glanced  away.  "Life,"  said  he,  "is  a  series  of 
such  hard  dilemmas  as  that.  But — happiness  is 
best." 

She  shook  her  pretty  head  positively,  "No," 
she  said. 

"What  then?" 

"To  strive  for  what  one  most  wants." 

"Not  to  get  it?" 

"Oh,  yes — to  get  it.  And  then  to  want  some 
thing  else — something  higher  and  harder — and  to 
get  that." 

Murdock  laughed.  "Poor  Joe !"  he  exclaimed. 
Then  he  betrayed  that  he  had  not  been  an  at 
tentive  listener  by  asking  again,  "How  goes  the 
honeymooning  ?" 

She,  piqued,  replied  carelessly,  "The  mosqui 
toes  and  flies  are  particularly  bad  this  year." 

"Mosquitoes  and  flies!  How  romantic  the 
young  ones  are  nowadays.  You  could  think  of 
such  things  when  you  had  the  woods  and  the 
lake  and — each  other." 

"We  could,"  replied  she.     "Look  at  my  face." 

There  were  a  few  indistinct,  red  marks  on  her 
28 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


clear  skin.  "Frightful,"  said  he.  He  patted  her 
on  the  shoulder — a  tribute  to  the  pleasure  her 
beauty  gave  him.  Then  he  added,  "I  suppose 
Joe  is  horrified  because  you  are  so  disfigured." 

She  sobered  with  curious  abruptness.  Pres 
ently  she  said,  with  an  effort,  "Can't  you  stay 
a  day  or  two?11 

"No,"  he  answered.  "We  must  be  off  to-night. 
I'm  sorry,  but  I  can't  delay.  I  have  important 
business  at  Saint  X." 

At  his  positive  refusal  she  looked  relieved;  but 
she  said,  "We  hoped  you'd  stay.  Joe'll  be  sorry." 

"Then  you  do  like  it  here." 

"Of  course,"  protested  she,  with  enough  veneer 
of  enthusiasm  to  deceive  one  so  preoccupied. 
"And  Joe's  crazy  about  it.  He  wants  to  stay  on 
until  October." 

"Well — why  not?  There's  no  reason  on  earth 
why  you  should  go  back.  You'll  have  to  begin 
life  soon  enough,  at  best." 

A  queer  little  smile  played  about  her  lips.  She 
looked  straight  ahead,  as  if  driving  required  all 
her  attention;  she  was  betrayed  by  a  deep  rut 

29 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


which  there  was  no  excuse  for  her  not  avoiding. 
The  heavy  jolt  threw  him  against  her,  brought 
his  eyes  very  near  her  face;  he  could  not  have 
avoided  seeing  a  tear  on  her  cheek,  or  noting 
how  hollow  and  circled  her  eyes  were.  He  put 
his  arm  around  her.  "You  are  not  happy, 
Norma,"  he  said  tenderly.  "Aren't  you  well? 
Doesn't  it  agree  with  you  here?" 

"What  nonsense!"  she  cried,  with  forced 
gaiety.  "Why,  I'm  perfectly  well — and  just  as 
happy  as  it's  possible  to  be." 

He  eyed  her  unbelievingly.  "As  it's  possible 
to  be?"  he  insisted. 

"Yes,  indeed,"  she  insisted. 

Still,  he  did  not  believe.  "Probably  they've 
struck  the  first  rough  bit  on  the  road,"  reflected 
he.  At  any  rate,  the  less  interference  the  better. 
He  rather  expected  to  see  signs  of  the  same  per 
turbation  in  Joe;  but  Joe,  handsome  and  healthy 
in  boating  flannels,  was  clearly  the  wildly  happy 
bridegroom  of  song  and  story.  He  greeted  his 
bride  as  if  he  had  not  seen  her  in  a  year;  and, 
as  he  and  Murdock  talked,  Murdock  noted  that 

30 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


his  eyes  were  always  wandering  to  her  to  flash 
passionate  admiration  at  her.  But  Norma, 
seated  at  the  water's  edge  and  idly  tossing  pine 
sprays  and  cones  upon  the  waters,  did  not  re 
turn  her  husband's  ardent  glances.  She  did  not 
lift  her  eyes  once;  and  Murdock,  observant  now, 
saw  that  the  lids  were  almost  as  blue  black  as  if 
they  had  been  bruised;  also,  there  was  a  pathos 
in  her  expression  that  went  straight  to  his 
heart. 

"Do  you  think  Norma  is  quite  well?"  he  asked 
— she  was  out  of  hearing. 

"Well?  Rather!"  exclaimed  Joe.  "Why, 
look  at  her.  She  enjoys  it  here,  except  she  isn't 
so  good  an  idler  as  I  am.  There's  an  art  you 
ought  to  learn,  Murdock.  What's  the  use  of  all 
that  sweat  and  struggle?  Norma,  there,  is  al 
ways  talking  of  doing  something — being  of  use 
to  the  world,  she  calls  it.  She  thinks  that  big, 
handsome  wife  of  Arthur  Ranger's  is  a  model. 
And  she  has  great  schemes  for  me  to  rush  about 
making  a  name  for  myself."  He  stretched  his 
symmetrical  length  still  more  lazily.  "But  not  I. 

31 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


I'm  going  to  be  happy — and  to  teach  her  happi 


ness." 


Murdock  studied  his  daughter's  regular,  strong 
profile.  "She's  got  a  lot  of  will  power,  Joe,"  he 
warned.  "Nobody  ever  could  do  much  with 
her." 

Joe  smiled.  As  related  to  himself,  he  would 
not  have  had  Norma  altered.  His  interest  in 
her  was  purely  physical;  what  went  on  in  her 
mind  was  important  only  as  it  gave  color  and 
variety  and  animation  to  her  features  and  to  her 
body.  In  Norma  as  related  to  others,  however, 
he  had  in  mind  some  rather  radical  alterations. 
He  was  not  an  aggressive  snob,  because  he  had 
been  bred  in  the  belief  that  to  be  a  Degarmo  was 
to  be  one  of  the  world's  small  coterie  of  "best 
people"  and  that,  therefore,  caste  was  no  more 
worth  thinking  about  than  any  other  matter  ir 
revocably  settled  and  settled  right.  But,  Norma, 
a  Degarmo  now  and  not  bred  to  it,  must  be  taken 
in  hand.  In  dress  and  manners  she  was  "all 
right" ;  but  her  ideas  ran  along  vulgar  lines — not 
her  fault,  but  the  result  of  too  much  association 

32 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


with  Madelene  Ranger,  a  female  doctor,  and  the 
university  set  at  Saint  X  with  its  eccentric  ideas 
of  "doing  something."  In  Joe's  opinion  a  lady 
might  patronize  and  suggest,  but  could  not  her 
self  do.  It  was  woman's  position  to  be  beauti 
ful  physically,  always  dressed  in  fashion,  politely 
occupied  with  her  social  duties.  Norma  was  to 
go  into  society,  in  New  York  and  London,  and 
they  would  cut  Saint  X  out  altogether  except  oc 
casionally  as  a  place  for  a  few  weeks  of  absolute 
repose  in  the  spring  and  fall.  He  would  show 
Antoinette  that  he  had  made  no  mistake  in  se 
lecting  a  wife. 

He  thought  Norma  too  simple  in  her  tastes. 
She  must  be  taught  luxuriousness.  In  fancy  he 
wandered  with  her  among  the  shops  of  the  Rue 
de  la  Paix,  helping  her  select  the  more  in 
timate  parts  of  her  wardrobe,  the  costly,  filmy, 
sensuous  things  that  stimulate  jaded  appetites. 
He  would  add  to  her  natural  physical  charm  the 
charms  of  environment,  the  arts  of  suggestion, 
which  had  attracted  him  to  the  women  of  his 
bachelor  days. 

33 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


"We'll  go  abroad  in  the  fall,"  Joe  continued 
aloud. 

"I  thought  Norma  spoke  of  staying  on  at  Saint 
X,"  said  Murdock,  absently. 

"She'll  give  that  up,"  answered  Joe,  confi 
dently.  "She  talks  of  going  to  the  university — 
of  entering  one  of  the  trades  classes.  But  what 
would  7  do?  .  .  .  No,  we're  going  abroad 
— to  spend  the  fall  in  Paris  and  the  winter  in 
the  Riviera  or  Egypt." 

But  Murdock  had  withdrawn  the  little  atten 
tion  he  had  been  giving  Degarmo  and  was  clos 
eted  with  his  own  thoughts.  That  day  dragged 
drearily  for  him.  He  took  small  interest  in  the 
Adirondacks  which  seemed  to  him  as  tame  as  a 
park  adjacent  to  a  city.  And  Degarmo  bored 
him.  He  had  never  been  in  such  close  intimacy 
with  him  before,  had  simply  accepted  him  on  gen 
eral  report  and  on  his  appearance  of  the  well- 
dressed,  well-mannered,  educated  gentleman. 
But  he  was  now  in  the  mood  to  take  note  of  him, 
and  soon  estimated  him  as  one  of  those  men  who 
are  like  a  carefully  cultivated  thin  soil  that  has 

34 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


to  be  constantly  renewed,  to  keep  it  from  failing 
altogether.  "No  doubt  Norma  regards  him  as  a 
prodigy,"  thought  Murdock.  "Another  proof  of 
the  power  of  the  spell  of  the  one  note  from  one 
string.  I  hope,  for  his  sake,  she  won't  weary 
of  hearing  it."  That  there  was  no  immediate 
danger  of  Joe's  wearying  of  uttering  the  note 
seemed  obvious. 

It  was  Joe's  skill  at  the  note  that  had  won  her; 
and  it  had  evoked  such  tremendous  response  in 
her  sensitive  nerves  and  vivid  imagination  that 
for  the  time  she  had  cared  to  hear  nothing  else, 
could  have  heard  nothing  else  distinctly.  She  had 
easily  mistaken  his  taciturnity  for  reflectiveness. 
How  was  an  inexperienced  child  to  know  what 
few  mature  people  realize — that  men  of  ideas, 
men  of  intellectual  activity,  are  always  talkative, 
can  no  more  keep  silent  than  a  spring  can  keep 
from  bubbling  over?  What  he  did  say  had  never 
been  silly,  had  been  usually  clever,  often  witty, 
always  put  in  the  superficially  attractive  form 
which  enables  fashionable  people  to  conceal  their 
vacuity  from  those  who  meet  them  only  occa- 

35 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


sionally.  How  was  she  to  know  that  he  was  sim 
ply  passing  along  the  ideas,  the  quaint  expres 
sions,  the  epigrams,  he  had  picked  up  in  his 
twenty  years  of  journeying  about  the  world;  that 
in  all  his  store  .there  was  nothing  of  his  own 
make? 

"I  am  not  well,"  she  said  to  herself  over  and 
over  again.  "There  must  be  something  wrong, 
or  I  should  not  feel  so  weary,  so  out  of  humor 
with  Joe — for  I  love  him — I  love  him!"  That 
word  sounded  hollow  now,  the  hollower  the  more 
loudly  it  was  uttered;  and  this  seemed  to  her  fur 
ther  evidence  that  she  was  somehow  physically 
ill.  She  did  not  understand  her  own  sensations, 
did  not  realize  that  her  heart-sick  feeling  was 
protest  and  revolt  against  a  conception  of  love 
which  made  of  her  a  mere  servant  to  the  sensu 
ous  imaginings  of  a  mind  atrophied  by  disuse  to 
the  primitive  activities  of  appetite.  She  could 
not  understand  why  at  times  love  for  him  surged 
up  in  her  with  more  than  its  former  delirious  fire 
of  insatiable  longings,  of  dreams  beyond  the 
farthest  horizon  of  thought,  why  these  tidal 

36 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


waves  were  succeeded  by  weariness,  distaste  for 
him,  for  herself,  for  life,  a  desire  to  fly  from 
him.  "It  is  very  strange/'  she  thought.  "I  sup 
pose  it  must  be  some  disease  that  comes  with  mar 
ried  life."  And  she  wondered  whether  she  would 
have  the  courage  to  consult  her  friend,  Doctor 
Madelene,  about  a  matter  so  intimate.  She  felt 
her  inexperience  must  be  enlightened;  and,  as  her 
mother  was  unthinkable,  there  was  none  but 
Madelene. 

"Let's  not  go  back  just  yet,  Norma,"  urged 
Joe,  late  in  the  afternoon. 

Her  heart  sank  at  the  very  suggestion  of  lin 
gering.  "We  must  go,  dearest,"  she  said.  "I 
don't  like  to  confess  it,  but  I'm  not  exactly  well." 

"Absurd!"  cried  Joe.  As  they  were  in  the 
privacy  of  their  own  tent,  he  had  her  in  his  arms; 
she  was  the  more  firmly  convinced  of  her  own 
illness  because  his  arms  about  her,  his  fingers 
stroking  her  cheek  or  pushing  languorously  into 
the  meshes  of  her  loose  thick  hair,  were  giving 
her  no  pleasure  but  a  sense  of  captivity,  of  the 
dog  in  the  treadmill.  "Why,  there  isn't  a  fiber 

37 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


of  this  beautiful  body  of  yours  that  is  not 
healthy." 

She  gently  freed  herself  with  a  strained  apolo 
getic  smile.  "Please  don't  insist.  I  really  must 
go."  She  looked  at  him  wistfully.  "Besides,  I'm 
afraid  you'll  get  tired  of — of  just  me." 

His  laugh  was  intended  to  reassure  her.  It 
never  occurred  to  him  that  she  might  have  grown 
tired  of  just  him.  "What  a  child  it  is!  Why,  I 
can't  bear  to  think  of  you  out  in  the  world  again. 
I  want  you  all  to  myself.  I  understand  why  the 
men  put  the  women  they  love  away  in  harems. 
If  I  could  do  it,  no  man  should  ever  see  my  little 
beauty  again." 

She,  with  her  face  turned  to  hide  its  tell-tale 
expression  from  him,  was  reproaching  herself  for 
not  liking  this.  Didn't  she  belong  to  him  en 
tirely,  absolutely,  irrevocably?  Oughtn't  she  to 
feel  that  all  she  was  and  had  belonged  to  him 
alone  ? 

"But  I  can't  hide  you  away,"  he  went  on. 
"And  I  suppose  I've  got  to  face  the  ordeal  of 
sharing  you  with  others  sooner  or  later  " 

38 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


At  that  she  winced,  flushed  with  a  feeling  of 
shame — yet,  why  should  she  feel  shame? 

"However,"  he  ended,  reluctantly,  "if  you 
really  wish  to  go " 

"I  really  must  go,"  she  interrupted,  eagerly; 
and,  though  it  was  the  truth,  she  felt  that  she  had 
told  him  a  falsehood.  Only  a  month  married, 
and  already  she  was  beginning  to  say  the  half- 
true  things  that  ought  to  be  wholly  true,  but  are 
not.  What  a  seducer  to  lies  and  deceptions  is  a 
conscience  with  an  eternal  demand  for  the  ought- 
to-be  !  "Then,  too,"  continued  she,  thoughtfully, 
"I  think  the  idleness  of  our  life  here  is  preying 


on  me." 


Her  husband  laughed.  "Idleness!  Why, 
you're  not  quiet  a  minute.  House  work,  tramp 
ing,  boating.  You're  at  it  from  morning  till 
night.  Now  I've  been  really  idle." 

"I  call  it  idleness,"  replied  she,  "when  I'm  not 
doing  anything  that  leads  anywhere.  I  know, 
you  say  it  bores  you  to  think  what  you're  doing 
might  possibly  be  useful.  But  I  don't  believe 
you." 

39 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


"You  wouldn't  have  me  competing  with  the 
poor  devils  who  have  to  work  for  a  living,  would 
you?"  teased  Joe.  "No,  indeed,"  he  added,  seri 
ous  intent  under  his  jesting  manner.  "People  of 
our  sort  ought  to  make  work  for  others.  To  do 
it  ourselves  is  to  cheat  them." 

Norma  took  this  gravely,  was  puzzled  by  it. 
"I  never  thought  of  that  before,"  said  she.  "It 
sounds  reasonable.  I  know  it  isn't,  but  I  must 
work  it  out.  I  don't  wish  to  do  anything  that 
would  make  it  harder  for  others  to  live." 

Joe  frowned.  "Norma,  my  dear,"  said  he, 
with  the  patronage  of  his  twenty  years  more  than 
hers,  "don't  make  wrinkles  for  yourself,  bother 
ing  about  such  things.  We're  lucky  enough  to 
have  been  born  into  a  lot  where  we  can  enjoy 
life  and  never  work  or  worry.  Let's  thank  God, 
and  make  the  most  of  it." 

"Do  you  think  God  intended  some  to  work  all 
the  time  and  others  never  to  work  at  all?" 

How  serious  she  looked!  How  simple-minded 
— and  how  sweet  of  her  to  take  such  matters  to 
heart!  He  caressed  her  hair,  as  he  answered, 

40 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


smilingly.  "Probably — since  that's  the  way  of 
the  world." 

"I  feel,  Joe,  that  we're  put  here  to  make  the 
world  better,  that  it's  an  estate  we  ought  all  to 
labor  to  improve."  His  look  was  so  disapprov 
ing,  that  she  hastened  to  add,  "You  know,  I  al 
ways  told  you  I  felt  that  way.  And  I  dream 
every  day — have  dreamed  ever  since  loving  you 
made  me  begin  to  think  seriously  of  life — have 
dreamed  of  how  we'd  work  together,  doing  our 
share  of  the  improving.  Yes,  we're  going  to 
enjoy  life,  Joe — for,  there's  no  real  enjoyment 
unless  one  is  at  work." 

"We'll  see,  we'll  see,"  was  all  he  said.  It  irri 
tated  him  a  little  to  hear  her  talk  in  this  way — 
not  much,  for  the  sound  of  her  voice,  no  matter 
what  she  said,  gave  him  the  same  pleasure  he 
felt  in  gliding  his  fingers  over  her  firm,  vital  flesh. 
He  smiled  away  his  irritation  by  thinking  how 
differently  she  would  feel  and  talk  once  he  had 
put  her  to  school  in  the  "great  world"  where  such 
vulgarities  as  ambition  and  work  were  ranked  in 
their  proper  place — the  world  of  ladies  and  gen- 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


tlemen,  leading  the  life  that  was  the  evidence  of 
their  superiority  to  the  masses  of  their  fellow 
beings.  "She's  really  never  seen  anything  of  the 
world,"  he  reminded  himself.  "Naturally,  she's 
under  the  influence  of  her  surroundings."  He  re 
membered  that,  while  he  was  by  inheritance  from 
the  non-toiling  generations  and  by  lifelong  en 
vironment  a  gentleman,  she  was  in  the  first  gen 
eration  away  from  toil,  with  her  father,  still  a 
young  man  and  of  dominating  personality,  set 
ting  an  example  of  labor.  "Of  course,  Mur- 
dock's  a  gentleman,  in  a  sense,"  thought  he. 
"He's  been  to  college,  and  all  that.  But  he's  not 
a  gentleman  by  birth,  though  I  believe  his  father 
did  go  to  some  academy  or  other.  Still,  we  can't 
expect  much  of  these  new  families  until  the  toil 
ing  generation  is  under  ground — hardly  until  the 
third  generation.  I  suppose  I'll  have  to  combat 
Norma's  notions  all  our  lives." 

This,  however,  did  not  distress  him.  The 
combat  would  be  intermittent  and  mild,  after  the 
first  year  or  so.  One  advantage  of  marrying  a 
woman  so  many  years  younger — the  greatest  ad- 

42 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


vantage  after  the  fact  that  her  charms  would  be 
young  and  fresh  at  least  until  he  had  passed  into 
old  age — was  that  her  character  was  unmoulded, 
would  be  what  he  chose  to  make  it.  To  find 
a  congenial  character  might  have  been  impos 
sible;  to  make  one  would  be  easy,  for  Norma 
would  continue  to  look  up  to  him  as  an  authority. 
As  for  the  rubbish  about  his  making  a  career,  he 
would  bring  her  round  to  realizing  that  to  be  Joe 
Degarmo  was  a  career  already  made;  that  he 
had  been  born  to  a  distinction  beyond  any  that 
could  be  achieved  by  the  sweaty  strugglers  in  the 
arena  of  ambition;  that  it  was  for  the  smiles  and 
the  recognition  of  the  people  in  the  boxes, 
whereof  he  was  one,  that  those  toiling  chaps  ex 
erted  themselves  so  strenuously.  While  these 
thoughts  were  drifting  through  his  brain,  she  was 
lying  in  his  arms,  her  cheek  against  his.  If  he 
could  have  seen  into  her  brain,  he  would  have 
been  astounded  at  the  storm  raging  there — the 
doubts  of  him,  the  reproaches  of  herself,  the 
anger  at  her  feeling  of  repulsion  toward  him,  of 
antagonism  instead  of  companionship.  But  he 

43 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


could  not  see.  And  how  was  he  to  know  that 
her  forced  and  eager  return  of  his  caresses  was 
simply  repentance,  remorse,  a  striving  to  make 
duty  do  service  where  desire  was  shrinking  and 
shirking? 


44 


Ill 

WHEN  the  returning  bride  and  groom 
drove  into  the  Degarmo  grounds 
and  came  in  sight  of  the  big  old 
house,  Norma  discovered  that  she  had  been  as 
suming  it  would  be  open  in  its  entirety  and  ready 
to  receive  them.  Her  face  fell,  as  she  saw  that 
only  the  west  wing  was  open — only  the  part  al 
ways  kept  in  readiness  for  temporary  tenancy. 
She  glanced  furtively  at  her  husband;  the  expres 
sion  of  his  eyes  and  mouth  warned  her  that,  if 
there  was  to  be  a  peaceful  beginning  of  their  real 
life  together,  she  must  say  nothing  just  then. 

Next  day  she  began  to  talk  of  the  future,  bas 
ing  everything  on  an  implied  idea  that  they  were 
to  stay  on  at  Saint  X.  Joe  neither  assented  nor 
disputed;  he  simply  let  her  talk.  A  few  days  of 
this;  then  she  discovered  that  he  had  given  the 
three  house  servants  notice  that  they  would  not 

45 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


be  wanted  after  October  first.  She  decided  that 
the  issue  must  be  joined.  "I've  been  talking  with 
father,"  began  she.  "He  says  you  can  easily  get 
to  Congress.  And  I  know  you'll  soon  be  a  big 
ger  man  than  Senator  Scarborough." 

Joe  with  difficulty  concealed  the  wound  to  his 
vanity;  what  a  topsy-turvy  brain  this  wife  of  his 
had,  comparing  him,  the  Degarmo,  with  a  cheap- 
joke  politician,  and  one  viewed  askance  by  all  the 
respectable,  fashionable  people. 

"I'm  going  to  begin  to  learn  about  politics," 
proceeded  she. 

"For  God's  sake,  don't!"  exclaimed  her  hus 
band,  his  manner  all  mockery,  his  meaning  all 
earnest. 

"I  must,"  she  persisted.  "It's  to  be  our  ca 
reer."  And  she  snuggled  into  his  lap. 

"We'll  see — we'll  see,"  said  he,  more  amiably. 
"When  we  come  back  from  Europe " 

"Why,  I  thought  that  was  settled,"  she  cried. 
They  were  out  walking  and  had  seated  them 
selves  by  the  roadside  to  rest  and  enjoy  the  lovely 
late  summer  panorama  of  hills  and  valleys  and 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


river.  As  she  spoke,  she  drew  away  from  him, 
so  that  she  could  gaze  into  his  face. 

"So  it  is,  nightingale."  He  refused  to  meet 
her  glance. 

"And  we  are  to  stay  on  here." 

"After  we've  been  happy  together  among  the 
Italian  lakes  and  in  the  Riviera.  You  must  see 
Egypt,  too." 

She  rose,  resumed  the  walk.  He  lazily  fol 
lowed  her,  lighting  a  cigarette  as  he  came.  She 
wheeled  on  him.  "Joe,"  she  said,  her  manner 
at  once  timid  and  resolute. 

"Yes,  dear." 

"Is  it  true  that  you've  given  the  servants  no 
tice  for  the  first  of  October?" 

"I  wrote  from  camp.  It's  only  decent  to  give 
them  a  chance  to  place  themselves." 

She  walked  beside  him  in  silence.  When  they 
were  almost  down  to  the  level,  she  said,  with  a 
deep  blush,  "There's  a  reason  I  haven't  told 
you — a  reason  why  I  can't  go  this  winter." 

It  was  his  turn  to  halt  sharply;  for  it  was  im 
possible  to  misunderstand  her  tone  and  expres- 

47 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


sion.  uWhy  didn't  you  tell  me  before?"  he  de 
manded,  almost  sternly. 

She  hung  her  head,  and  suddenly  looked  like 
a  child.  "I  don't  know,"  she  murmured,  crimson 
with  shyness.  "I  don't  know."  There  were  the 
beginnings  of  a  smile  in  her  eyes.  She  had  been 
treasuring  this  secret  and  imagining  often  how 
surprised  and  happy  he  would  be,  when  she 
should  let  him  in  to  share  it  with  her. 

"It  mustn't  be!"  he  exclaimed,  the  master  in 
his  voice. 

She  slowly  lifted  her  eyes,  wondering,  dazed. 

"Perhaps — after  a  while,"  he  explained,  some 
what  confused  by  the  wondering  innocence  of  her 
eyes.  "But  I  can't  have  your  figure  marred.  Be 
sides,  what  dp  we  want  with  that  sort  of  thing? 
They'd  only  be  in  the  way,  would  take  you  from 
me.  I  think  the  working  classes  ought  to  have 
the  children.  There's  nothing  in  it  for  the  peo 
ple  in  our  station." 

Her  color  fled  as  he  spoke;  it  came  back  with 
a  rush,  and  she  burst  out,  "But,  Joe,  I  want  it!" 

"You  don't  realize,"  rejoined  he.  "It'll  cer- 
48 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


tainly  injure  your  figure,  change  you  from  a  girl 
into  God  knows  what  sort  of  looking  woman. 
Anyhow,  it'll  spoil  your  freshness.  You  love  me, 
don't  you?" 

"You  know  I  do,"  she  replied,  her  cheeks  hot, 
her  eyes  full  of  entreaty. 

"Then  you'll  have  this  attended  to.  We'll  go 
on  to  New  York  at  once." 

She  lowered  her  eyes,  her  head.  Presently  she 
walked  on,  he  accompanying  her.  During  the 
rest  of  the  journey  there  was  an  occasional  out 
burst  from  him  on  the  subject  of  the  follies  and 
inconveniences  and  dangers  of  maternity,  to 
which  she  did  not  reply.  When  they  reached 
the  gates  of  the  Degarmo  house,  she  said,  very 
quietly  and  calmly,  "I  think  I'll  walk  a  little  far 
ther,  and — please,  I'd  like  to  be  alone." 

"That's  right,  think  it  out.  Better  still,  talk 
with  some  woman  about  it.  No,  wait  till  we  get 
to  New  York.  Tony's  the  best  person.  The 
women  out  here  are  old  fogies,  and  they  don't 
appreciate  the  kind  of  life  that's  ahead  of  you." 

Norma  simply  listened  until  he  had  finished, 
49 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


then  went  on  alone.  She  was  silent  and  quiet  be 
cause  she  was  dazed;  what  Joe  had  said  was  like 
an  earthquake  shock  to  her.  To  have  a  child 
had  been  her  dream  from  earliest  days  she  could 
remember.  As  she  grew  up  and  came  to  see  fur 
ther  into  the  meaning  of  the  mysteries  of  life,  it 
had  thrilled  her  to  think  that  she  was  a  woman, 
set  apart  by  nature  for  the  great  honor  and  joy 
of  motherhood.  To  her  woman  meant  mother; 
and  when  she  learned  that  there  were  women  who 
could  not  be  mothers,  she  had  begun  to  be 
haunted  by  the  fear  that  she  was  one  of  those 
wretched  accursed  ones.  Where  other  girls  were 
suffering  from  that  dread,  born  of  our  stupid 
civilization — the  dread  lest  they  should  never 
meet  the  acceptable  man  who  would  be  willing 
to  undertake  their  support  for  life,  she  was  in 
dread  lest  it  should  be  her  fate  never  to  feel  a 
tiny  form  that  was  flesh  of  her  flesh  clasped  in 
her  arms,  against  her  bosom.  And  when  she 
found  for  a  certainty  that  her  dread  was  base 
less,  she,  being  by  nature  secretive  like  her  fa 
ther,  kept  her  secret  nearly  a  month  as  a  source 

50 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


of  deep,  private  and  sustaining  joy  at  a  time 
when  her  relations  with  Joe  were  troubling  her 
more  than  she  would  have  admitted  to  herself. 
Now —  She  was  in  Riverside  park  thronged 
with  wives  and  children  of  the  workingmen — 
babies  in  "prams,"  babies  in  arms,  babies  totter 
ing  uncertainly  along  the  walks,  babies  rolling  in 
the  grass,  the  faces  of  babies  fairer  than  flowers 
everywhere,  the  laughter  of  babies  ringing  in  her 
ears.  She  darted  up  one  of  the  by-paths,  flung 
herself  on  the  grass  and  cried,  her  heart  filling 
with  tears  faster  than  her  eyes  could  empty  it. 
Hers  was  deeper  far  than  the  vague  moral 
shock  of  the  idea  that  her  child  was  already  in 
existence  and  that  her  husband  had  sentenced  it 
to  death.  It  was  the  vivid  anguish  of  a  shattered 
dream,  a  shattered  idol — for,  she  felt  that  she 
must  choose  between  the  love  of  her  husband  and 
her  longing  for  motherhood.  She  was  not  one 
to  sit  in  judgment  upon  him  in  a  matter  where 
he  had  as  much  right  to  decide  as  she — and  in 
this  matter  it  seemed  to  her  that  his  right  was 
equal  to  her  own. 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


She  rose,  washed  her  face  at  a  little  drinking 
fountain  and  dried  it  with  her  handkerchief.  She 
remembered  that  Madelene  Ranger  had  after 
noon  hours  at  the  hospital  in  the  edge  of  the 
park.  "I'll  go  to  her,"  she  decided.  "Perhaps 
I  can  talk  about  it  with  her." 

She  found  Madelene  leaving — Madelene,  tall 
and  strong,  a  Juno,  with  a  face  like  that  of  a 
woman  in  Barnard's  sculptured  dream  of  the  day 
when  the  man  and  the  woman  shall  be  in  all  re 
spects  equal,  working  together  for  the  glory  of 
the  race.  Madelene  was  generally  conceded  to 
be  the  most  remarkable  woman  in  Saint  X.  She 
worked  hard  at  her  profession,  yet  somehow  she 
had  time  to  make  her  home  a  real  home,  a  place 
of  beauty  and  comfort,  and  effectually  to  superin 
tend  the  care  of  the  two  healthiest,  best-natured 
children  ever  seen,  precocious,  but  not  in  the  least 
pert,  and  to  make  her  husband  dependent  upon 
her  for  everything  material  as  well  as  spiritual 
that  a  man  could  possibly  get  from  a  woman,  and 
to  keep  herself  well  dressed  and  well  informed. 
Madelene  was  a  miracle  to  the  world  of  hap- 

52 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


hazard  people  who  have  not  learned  that  in  each 
waking  day  there  are  fifty-four  thousand  seconds, 
each  with  its  opportunities  for  happiness  and  use 
fulness  if  employed  with  intelligent  method. 
Madelene  accomplished  wonders  without  struggle 
or  worry  or  fret,  and  with  no  more  evidence  of 
the  mechanism  of  purpose  which  guided  her  than 
appears  in  the  movements  of  a  ship  sailing  freely 
through  the  midst  of  the  sea. 

"Let's  go  by  way  of  the  park,"  said  she  to 
Norma.  And  they  strolled  along,  Madelene 
pausing  every  few  steps  to  speak  to  some  mother 
or  to  peer  into  a  baby  carriage.  Norma  would 
have  liked  to  take  part;  but  she  was  afraid  to 
trust  herself  to  touch  a  baby.  Nor  could  she 
bring  the  conversation  round  to  what  lay  heavy 
upon  her  heart;  to  discuss  so  intimate  a  matter 
with  anyone  was  clearly  impossible;  it  would 
have  been  impossible,  even  had  she  been  by  na 
ture  less  reluctant  to  confidence.  But  the  society 
of  so  sane,  so  sturdy  a  personality  as  Madelene 
had  all  the  effect  of  confidence  and  counsel.  The 
power  of  advice  is  feeble,  the  power  of  example 

53 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


is  mighty.  Madelene,  living  in  honesty  and  cour 
age,  gave  her  the  strength  she  sorely  needed. 
When  they  separated  at  Madelene's  gate,  Norma 
went  her  way  thinking  that  Madelene  had  not 
the  remotest  suspicion  of  the  object  of  that  walk. 
But  Madelene,  keenest  of  observers,  had  known 
the  instant  she  saw  the  girl's  face  that  something 
was  wrong  at  home.  And,  as  she  watched  Norma 
go,  watched  that  graceful  carriage  which  made 
her  a  delight  to  the  eye,  she  sighed  and  said  to 
herself,  "Poor  child!  I'm  afraid  she's  had  a 
glimpse  of  the  feet  of  her  peacock,  and  has  heard 
his  voice." 

Norma  resorted  to  no  diplomacy.  She  as 
tounded  her  husband  by  appearing  before  him 
in  his  sitting  room,  with  pale,  determined  face 
and  steady  eyes,  saying,  "Joe,  I've  been  thinking 
over  what  we  were  discussing.  I've  decided  that 
I  must  stay  on  here." 

In  all  Degarmo's  dealings  with  women  there 
tofore  he  had  always  had  them  at  disadvantage. 
Naturally  he  did  not  immediately  see  that  his 
position  relative  to  her,  this  woman,  his  lawful 

54 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


wife,  was  just  the  reverse  of  all  his  previous  ex 
periences.  "Come  here,"  he  invited,  stretching 
out  his  arms  and  looking  and  speaking  as  if  she 
were  a  little  child. 

She  came  slowly,  seated  herself  on  his  knee. 
There  was  that  in  her  expression  which  made 
him  instinctively  refrain  from  putting  his  arms 
round  her.  The  person  seated  on  his  knee  and 
regarding  him  so  steadily  and  so  gravely,  as  if 
from  behind  a  veil,  was  not  a  child,  was— — 
He  wondered  uneasily  just  what  she  was. 

"Why  do  you  look  at  me  like  that?"  he 
asked. 

"Because  I  was  trying  to  decide  whether  you 
really  love  me,  as  you  say  and  think." 

"So  you  think  a  man  proves  his  love  for  a 
woman  by  giving  in  to  her  whims?" 

She  did  not  reply. 

"You  are.  very  young,  dear,"  he  went  on. 
"There  are  a  great  many  things  about  life  that 
you  couldn't  possibly  know  as  yet.  In  those 
things  you  must  trust  me." 

"I  do,"  she  said,  simply. 
55 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


"Very  well.  Then  we  shall  go  to  New  York 
to-morrow." 

"I  cannot." 

uNorma !" 

"I  cannot.  I  don't  know  just  why.  But  there's 
something  that  won't  let  me." 

He  made  an  impatient  movement;  she  rose  and 
seated  herself  at  a  little  distance.  "It  is  settled," 
he  said,  firmly.  "We  shall  go." 

Again  she  was  giving  him  that  steady  gaze  of 
unalterable  denial. 

"It  is  settled,"  he  repeated. 

She  shook  her  head  sadly.  "Please  don't,  Joe. 
I  can't  go — and  it — it  hurts  to  clash  with  you." 

"Be  careful,  dear,"  he  said,  with  the  kind  of 
gentleness  that  is  ominous.  "If  you  were  more 
experienced  you  would  appreciate  how  unwise 
it  is  to  defy  your  husband,  to  put  his  love  to  such 
a  strain." 

"Do  you  mean  that,  if  I  refused  to  do  what  I 
could  not  do,  you  would  not  love  me  any 
more!" 

He  could  not  well  say  yes ;  if  he  said  no,  what 

56 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


would  become  of  his  authority?  He  said  noth 
ing. 

"Aren't  you  afraid  of  how  it  might  make  me 
feel,  if  you  were  to  insist  on  my  doing  what  I 
couldn't  do?" 

He  avoided  her  gaze.  He  parried  her  thrust 
into  the  very  heart  of  his  egotism  with,  "You 
will  thank  me  some  day  for  having  insisted.  Tell 
me,  Norma,  why  can't  you  go?" 

She  tried  to  speak,  could  find  no  words  in 
which  to  express  the  emotions  that  were  compell 
ing  her  to  stand  fast.  Suddenly  she  dropped  to 
her  knees,  hid  her  face  in  the  folds  of  his  dress 
ing  gown  and  sobbed  bitterly.  ujoe — please, 
dear — don't  ask  it." 

Joe  stroked  her  hair  tenderly.  But  he  was 
not  relenting.  While  they  were  talking,  he  had 
been  realizing  how  foolish  it  was  for  a  man  to  try 
to  enforce  upon  a  wife  an  authority  a  mistress 
would  not  for  an  instant  question.  For  the  first 
time  he  felt  the  rude  chafe  of  the  marriage  bond. 
And  back  to  him  came  all  the  cynicisms  he  had 
thought  and  uttered  in  the  years  of  his  jealously 

57 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


guarded  freedom,  cynicisms  about  the  fatuous 
folly  of  a  man's  marrying  and,  so,  handing  him 
self  over  captive  to  a  woman — the  cynicisms  that 
were  current  in  his  set  and  that  his  sister  had  re 
peated  to  him  when  she  was  dissuading  him  from 
"making  a  fool  of  himself."  It  certainly  did  be 
gin  to  look  as  though  his  confidence  in  his  su 
periority  to  his  young  and  inexperienced  wife,  in 
his  ability  to  make  his  will  at  all  times  and  in  all 
matters  her  law  was  of  a  piece  with  the  fatuities 
into  which  passion  had  led  other  men.  But  no 

"Impossible,"  he  said  to  himself.  "She's 

simply  in  a  stubborn  mood.  Women  have  those 
cranky  spells,  especially  at  such  times.  She'll 
come  round.  D n  it,  she's  got  to !" 

And  he  stroked  her  hair  and  soon  was  kissing 
the  white  soft,  deliciously  curved  nape  of  her 
neck.  Like  an  inspiration  it  flashed  over  him 
that  the  thing  to  do  was  to  send  for  Tony  and 
have  her  bring  Norma  to  reason. 

Aloud  he  said:  "Let's  think  no  more  about  it 
at  present."  He  lifted  her  up  into  his  arms.  One 
of  his  hands  dropped  to  her  ankle,  to  her  foot. 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


"What  a  great  coarse  boot  for  such  a  fine,  deli 
cate  little  foot,"  he  laughed.  "You  ought  never 
to  wear  anything  but  graceful  slippers  and  the 
thinnest  cob-web  silk  stockings.  When  we  get  to 
Paris  I'll  show  you  a  place  where  they  have  the 
most  wonderful  things  of  that  sort — things  that 
make  even  a  respectable  woman  understand  why 
some  women  will  sell  their  souls  to  get  them. 
With  your  taste,  and  your  instincts  for  the  soft 
est  luxury,  and  your  beautiful  face  and  figure 

By  next  spring  there'll  be  nobody  in  the  whole 
world  to  compare  with  my  Norma." 


That  night  he  telegraphed  for  his  sister — he 
always  used  the  telegraph,  which  saved  him  the 
exertion  letter  writing  involved.  And  Tony,  hav 
ing  nothing  to  do  but  things  she  would  rather 
have  left  undone,  and  having  by  no  means  given 
over  the  idea  of  rescuing  her  brother  from  "that 
pretty  little  nobody,"  had  her  maid  forthwith 
prepare  her  for  the  journey.  It  was  really  no 
exertion  to  travel.  Her  maid,  Bernice,  was  a 

59 


Vifiil  mtmAt  «•*•!.  an  inafmlrtli  "  Afl 

sfcc  Inn  to  S*T  ws$*    ONJUMUC*  WMS  pontons 


it  tbc 


to 

^  ^.^^., ,  ^f  » 

.     :    v-~Tl.p     ^^  .  .    j. 

^Mta*-        ^W^M  *  —   -^  ^^k«h» 

:  _  i    .•_:   . . ; :     ~::    .. .;  ":•..* 

if  \i$  ciainrr  n  pmratc 


•^  -*  -    «,      -, ««      ~ 

.;       .  •.  .  _     •     . .  .  ^ .    .     « 

of  herEfebr 
•ad  wuucdL  foor 


DEGABMCTS  WIFE 


mce  penetrated- 

Joe  met  her  at  dbe  station,  and  on  the 

her-      \Stwc  met  a  good,  straight  taft..  Tony,, 


she  needs  b  to  bare  the  way  of  good 
her,  and  I  can't  talk  to  her  as 


"SdD  -  ?*    Again  Mrs. 
"What  is  it?"  inured  Joe, 
"No  matter.    Well  we." 

i  s  ju  citing  was  ahnost  too  cold  for 


61 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


ter  had  with  her  husband,  how  profoundly  he  re 
spected  her  intelligence  and  her  worldly  wisdom; 
and  she  was  intensely  jealous  of  it  and  of  her. 
Degarmo  would  have  been  furious  had  he  over 
heard  the  conversation  between  his  wife  and  his 
sister,  or  rather,  Antoinette's  monologues,  rarely 
interspersed  with  enforced  monosyllabic  responses 
from  Norma.  Mrs.  Houghton  simply  laid  before 
the  girl  her  own  view  of  life — the  commonplace 
view  of  the  commonplace  people  who  accept  with 
out  question  and  live  the  silly,  vulgarly  showy 
life  assigned  by  custom  to  wealth  early  in  the 
career  of  the  human  race  and  never  changed — 
because  that  mode  of  living  involves  the  least 
thought  and  exertion,  and  places  those  who  live 
it  most  completely  at  the  mercy  of  those  who  fat 
ten  off  them.  To  Joe  these  lengthy  disquisitions 
would  have  seemed  purposeless;  in  fact,  it  was 
Tony's  shrewd  way  of  discovering  her  hostile  and 
tightly  enshelled  sister-in-law's  character  and 
ideas.  She  knew  that  to  get  on  confidential  terms 
with  Norma  was  impossible;  she  resorted  to  the 
strategy  of  the  flank  attack.  Setting  forth  the 

62 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


philosophy  of  life  as  handed  down  to  "people  of 
the  decent  sort"  from  cities  buried  miles  deep 
under  the  alluvial  deposits  of  Asiatic  plains,  she 
would  be  able  to  see  by  Normals  expression  what 
her  thought  was  and  also  how  strong  was  the 
character  in  which  that  thought  was  rooted.  To 
get  at  anyone's  views,  state  your  own  aggres 
sively;  it  is  not  in  human  nature  to  refuse  the 
challenge. 

As  Tony  talked,  Normals  tranquillity  took  on 
a  cloudier  and  cloudier  aspect  until  it  was  soon 
storm-black,  and  the  brief  responses  to  which  she 
had  the  marvelous  self-restraint  or  modesty  of 
personal  opinion  to  restrain  herself  were  like  dis 
charges  of  lightning.  At  the  end  of  an  hour 
Tony  was  intensely  amused  by  her  evident  repul 
sion  and  disdain.  To  Degarmo's  fashionable 
sister  the  opinion  of  Norma — a  child,  inexperi 
enced,  bred  in  vulgar  surroundings — was  of  about 
the  same  value  as  the  buzzings  and  flutterings  of 
an  impaled  fly.  "Physically  she's  unusual — 
there's  no  denying  it,"  thought  Antoinette.  "But 
she's  better  fitted  to  be  a  governess  than  to  be 

63 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


Joe's  wife.  Patience,  and  he'll  be  through  with 
her.  What  idiots  their  passions  make  of  men!" 

To  Joe  she  announced  after  four  days  of  ex 
ploration,  "As  I  feared,  she's  steeped  in  bour 
geois  morality,  Joe.  You  can  do  nothing  with 
her." 

"Why  do  you  say  that?"  he  demanded,  an 
grily.  "You're  set  against  her,  Tony.  You 
make  no  allowances  for  her  youth  and  bringing 

up.  Besides" Here  Joe  halted,  reddened, 

blurted — ud n  it,  a  man  doesn't  want  his 

wife  to  be  too  loose  in  principles.  It's  not  every 
woman  who  has  the  steady  head  to  have  liberal 
ideas — and  take  it  out  in  thinking,  as  you  do." 

Tony's  expression  was  quizzical.  "What  do 
you  know  about  me,  anyhow,  my  dear  blind 
brother?" 

"Nothing,"  said  Joe,  hastily,  and  with  some 
nervousness.  "And  I  don't  want  to  know." 

Tony  laughed  outright.  "How  I  do  admire 
the  profound  and  sincere  liberality  of  men,"  said 
she.  "You  want  this  wife  of  yours  to  be — no 
better  than  she  should — where  you  are  concerned, 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


and  a  puritan  toward  all  the  rest  of  the  world. 
That  can't  be,  Joseph.  Upset  her  principles,  dis 
illusion  her  about  yourself,  make  a  woman  of  the 
world  of  her,  and  she'll  treat  you  as  sophisti 
cated  women  of  her  ardent  temperament  usually 
treat  their  husbands.  She's  got  a  great  deal  more 
tenacity  and  firmness  than  you  have.  With  her 
energy — what  a  dance  she'd  lead  her  poor,  worn- 
out  husband!"  And  she  blew  a  cloud  of  smoke 
from  her  cigarette  into  his  sullen,  irritated  face. 

"Really,  Tony,"  retorted  he,  "you  must  be 
careful.  You're  getting  more  and  more  pro 
nounced  in  manners.  There's  a  limit,  you  know. 
It's  like  the  habit  of  rouging;  a  woman  keeps 
piling  on  more  and  more  until  she  becomes — 
offensive." 

"Don't  let  Norma  infect  you  with  her  class 
morality,"  cautioned  his  sister.  "But,  let's  not 
wander  from  the  point.  You  might  as  well  let 
her  have  her  way " 

"Never!" 

"You  may  like  family  life,  once  you  get  into  it. 
How  do  you  know?  But,  whether  you  like  it  or 

65 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


not,  she's  going  in  for  it — strong.  And  you're 
a  fool  not  to  encourage  her.  Listen  to  me,  Joe. 
You're  a  good  twenty  years  older  than  she. 
When  you're  a  bald-headed,  shriveled,  shaky 
wreck  of  fifty-five,  she'll  be  about  my  age  and 
if  she  becomes  sophisticated,  will  look  younger, 
because  the  women  nowadays  know  enough  to 
take  themselves  in  hand  earlier.  It  wasn't  until 
I  was  nearly  thirty  that  I  realized  what  youth 
meant  and  how  it  could  be  prolonged.  I've  done 
fairly  well,  I  think,  considering  my  late  start." 
She  was  posing  before  a  large  glass  set  into  the 
wall,  and  it  would  have  been  impossible  not  to 
pardon  the  complacence  of  the  glance  she  directed 
at  her  graceful  and  charming  image.  She  had 
keen  eyes  for  her  defects  as  well  as  for  her 
charms,  and,  so,  got  herself  together  to  with 
stand  the  most  severely  critical  gaze.  "Yes,"  she 
went  on,  "at  thirty-five,  she'll  be  even  more  at 
tractive  physically  than  she  is  now.  If  you 
have  your  stupid,  selfish,  short-sighted  way,  she'll 
become  expert  in  the  use  of  her  snares  and  nets. 
Don't  fancy,  Joe,  she'd  be  forever  content  to  cast 

66 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


in  the  monotonous  old  domestic  horsepond,  with 
the  wearisome  certainty  that  the  only  game  would 
be  her  dull  old  husband." 

Joe  was  pulling  glumly  and  reflectively  at  his 
mustache.  Already  there  was  a  spot  near  the 
crown  of  his  head  where  the  hair  showed  thin  in 
the  glass;  and  whenever  he  was  up  later  than 
usual  it  depressed  him  to  see  in  his  shaving  glass 
the  outcropping  of  wrinkles  and  faint  forewarn- 
ings  of  the  gray  shadows  of  stealthily  on-creeping 
old  age. 

"You're  at  the  edge  of  your  autumn/1  contin 
ued  his  sister.  "She's  just  begun  her  spring,  with 
all  of  it  and  all  of  her  long  summer — and  au 
tumn — and  Indian  summer — before  her." 

"Um — m,"  grunted  Joe. 

"Of  course,  it  won't  be  long  before  you'll  not 
care  especially  about  her — except  as  she  bears 
the  family  name.  Still,  on  that  account,  you'll 
want  her  to  be  at  least  not  a  pattern  scandal." 

Joe  winced.  He  had  sunk  back  in  his  big 
chair,  as  if  beaten  down  by  her  arguments.  He 
felt  old  and  he  would  not  have  dared  meet  his 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


sister's  merciless,  mocking  gaze,  so  certain  was 
he  that  his  eyes  were  betraying  the  fact  that 
haunted  his  solitary  hours. 

"Now,"  continued  Tony,  "you  can't  hope 
safely  to  transform  her  into  a  woman  of  the 
world.  Why  try?  Why  set  her  against  you? 
No — no,  Joe,  old  man — don't  stir  her  up.  Let 
her  jog  peacefully  along,  and  give  her  a  good, 
heavy,  steady  burden  of  domestic  cares — chil 
dren  and  so  forth." 

Joe  continued  to  reflect.  Tony  had  convinced 
him;  but,  used  to  having  his  way  in  all  his  de 
sires,  especially  in  his  whims,  he  could  not  yield 
at  once.  He  had  pictured  Norma  a  leader  of 
fashion,  a  cynosure  of  the  despairingly  envious 
glances  and  thoughts  of  other  men,  an  ever  fresh 
and  ever  subtler  stimulant  to  his  own  jaded  de 
sires.  "What  a  d n  fool  I  was  to  marry!" 

he  said  to  himself.  But  overtaking  the  thought 
came  a  rush  of  the  intoxicating  aroma  from  her 
young  loveliness,  an  appeal  to  each  of  his  five 
senses  and,  in  addition,  an  appeal  to  the  sixth 
sense;  that  is,  the  other  five  combined.  It  was 

68 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


the  elusive  appeal  of  her  to  that  sixth  sense  that 
made  him  secretly  her  slave.  Aloud  he  said, 
"There  seems  to  be  something  in  what  you  say, 
Tony.  It's  not  a  bad  idea  to  think  of  the 
future.'' 

"Don't    educate    your    wife    for    some    other 


man." 


Degarmo  shrank  from  the  frank  brutality  of 
this,  but  it  was  effective.  Then  and  there  he 
slammed  the  door  on  his  aristocratic  dream,  and 
resolved  that  his  wife  should  be  securely  his.  He 
looked  gratitude  at  his  sister.  "Mother  was 
right,  Tony,"  said  he.  "You've  got  the  brains 
of  the  family." 

"It's  a  pity  you  haven't,"  retorted  she.  With 
a  serious  look  in  her  cynical  eyes,  she  faced  him. 
"How  can  you!"  she  said,  contemptuously. 

He  flushed.     "What  now?" 

"How  can  you  be  content  to  dawdle  along  and 
spend  your  life  in  playing  at  the  poor  little  game 
the  women  have  invented  because  the  big  game 
is  denied  them  and  they  must  do  something?  As 
I  watch  the  men  in  our  set,  I  can  think  of 

69 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


nothing  but  silly  little  white  mice  twirling  in  the 
wheel  at  the  end  of  their  cage.*' 

"That  sounds  like  Norma." 

She  elevated  her  handsome  shoulders  and  lit 
a  fresh  cigarette.  "When  you  get  Norma's  bur 
den  well  adjusted,  you'll  be  free  again.  That's 
what  /  want.  I  miss  you  horribly.  Houghton 
is  such  a  bore,  and  besides,  I  can't  speak  out 
freely,  be  my  natural  self,  with  anyone  on  earth 
but  you." 

"Stay  on  here  with  us." 

"Until  to-morrow  morning — the  first  good 
train.  I  don't  like  this  latest  fad  of  yours  any 
better  than  she  likes  me." 

Joe  stood  and  took  her  by  the  shoulders. 
"Look  at  me,  Tony.  There!  You  understand 
a  great  deal  about  human  nature,  especially 
woman  nature.  But  there's  one  thing  you  don't 
understand." 

"Really?" 

"Yes — really.  You  don't  understand  the — the 
sort  of  thing  Norma  and  I  are  to  each  other." 

"You  mean,  I  don't  appreciate  it."  A  hard 
70 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


look  came  into  her  eyes.  "No,  I  don't,"  she  said 
dryly. 

But  Joe  for  once — for  the  first  time — did  not 
mind  the  sarcasm.  "The  interesting  thing  is,"  he 
went  on,  "that  I  didn't  dream  it  was  in  me. 
What  the  devil  is  this  thing  they  call  love,  any 
how?" 

The  hard  look  slowly  faded  from  his  sister's 
eyes.  "What,  indeed?"  said  she.  Two  tears 
were  glistening  in  her  long  lashes.  She  turned 
sharply  away. 


IV 

<, 

BUT  oracles  may  not  retract  or  revise. 
While  reflection  only  strengthened  his 
conviction  that  Tony  was  right,  still, 
as  Norma's  oracle,  Degarmo  hesitated  to  strike 
such  a  serious  blow  at  his  prestige  as  a  "giving 
in,"  however  indirect  and  carefully  disguised.  It 
was  while  he  was  still  debating  that  his  father- 
in-law  served  notice  on  his  mother-in-law  that 
she  must  begin  divorce  proceedings,  as  he  was 
determined  to  be  free  as  soon  as  the  courts  could 
release  him.  Joe  did  not  blame  Murdock;  he 
had  long  suspected  that  Murdock  would  not  con 
tinue  to  the  end  with  a  woman  so  utterly  out  of 
sympathy  with  him.  But,  when  Mrs.  Murdock, 
with  a  view  to  enlisting  him  to  help  her  fight  off 
the  divorce,  pictured  to  him  the  possible  conse 
quences  of  such  a  scandal  to  Norma  and  the 
child — how  it  might  kill  her  and  bring  the  child 
into  the  world  an  idiot,  perhaps  a  motherless 

72 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


idiot — Joe  forgot  all  about  oracle  and  prestige, 
sped  to  New  York,  and  induced  his  father-in-law 
to  postpone. 

It  was  no  easy  task,  as  Murdock,  expert  in  the 
ways  of  destiny,  appreciated  to  the  full  how 
dangerous  it  is  to  alter  a  plan,  no  matter  what 
plausible  reason  destiny,  ever  craftily  plotting  to 
cheat  man  of  his  desires,  may  put  forward.  But 
Murdock  was  weak  on  his  Norma  side,  and  Joe 
won.  He  had  gone  to  New  York  in  a  panic;  he 
had  negotiated  with  the  inflexible  Murdock  in 
terror.  The  return  journey  was  like  smooth  sea, 
cloudless  sky  and  favoring  winds  after  a  tem 
pest  that  has  all  but  foundered  the  ship.  "Now 
for  home!"  he  said  to  himself,  jubilantly,  as  he 
left  Murdock' s  club  and  was  out  of  sight  of  that 
stern  and  bitter  countenance.  Home !  He  smiled 
to  himself,  and  at  himself,  as  he  thought  what  a 
simple,  old-fashioned  meaning  that  word  home 
now  had  for  him — how  much  of  a  kind  of  charm 
of  which  he  would  not  so  long  before  have  de 
nied  the  very  existence,  how  much  of  sentiment  he 
would  have  sneered  at  as  sloppy  sentimentality, 

73 


DEGARMCTS  WI 


;:   i 


~ :  j  ^   "- :  '•  ; 


the 


::-:_:i  ::  ; 


to  try  bachelor 


to 


a  father.    It  vodd  b 


::: 


•   i 


cf 
X  aad  !•  tfce  apaitBert  a  Nc*  Tnk  these  liad 


~- 


v-.-  : 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


become  in  his  life.  The  mental  atmosphere 
seemed  dull.  "I  should  die  of  ennui,"  he  said  to 
himself.  "I  never  yawned  so  much.  I  have  no 
interest,  even  in  the  things  she  took  no  part  in." 
And  then  he  recalled  that  his  bachelor  days  had 
been  monotonous,  that  boredom  with  their  mo 
notony  had  been  his  passion's  chief  ally  in  edging 
him  on  to  matrimony.  Yes,  she  had  given  him 
companionship.  It  was  not  his  society  that  had 
made  her  vivacious;  it  was  her  vivacity  that  had 
livened  him  up. 

"I'm  afraid  IVe  been  pretty  tedious  and  hard 
to  entertain,"  he  thought — and  there  he  hit  upon 
a  great  and  valuable  truth. 

The  next  stage  of  his  astounding  discovery  that 
he  was  an  inhabitant  of  a  new  world  was  a  heart 
ache,  a  feeling  of  homesickness,  an  intense  and 
ever  intenser  longing  to  see  her  again,  not  a  long 
ing  of  passion,  but  a  longing  of  love.  "I  love 
her!"  he  cried  aloud,  in  the  loneliness  of  his  sit 
ting  room*  "I  love  her,  and  love  does  not  mean 
what  I  thought  it  did.  Norma,  how  blind,  how 
stupid  I  have  been!" 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


When  she  finally  did  return,  he  was  afraid  of 
her.  He  no  longer  felt  the  master.  He  realized 
that  he  had  given  her  the  custody  of  his  happiness ; 
that  marriage  had  meant  not  merely  the  acquisi 
tion,  under  the  forms  of  law  and  religion,  of  the 
beautiful  mistress,  the  passive  instrument  of  his 
passions;  that  it  had  meant  a  resignation  of  his 
self-ownership,  a  merging  of  his  identity.  "I  love 
you,"  he  said,  under  his  breath,  as  he  clasped  her 
in  his  arms.  "What  would  become  of  me  if  I 
should  lose  you?"  A  brief  two  months  before,  he 
had  thought  only  of  the  disagreeableness  of  the 
inevitable  time  when  he  should  lose  her  beauty. 
Now  her  beauty  meant  so  little  to  him.  "What  if 
I  should  lose  you?"  he  muttered,  not  daring  to 
let  her  see  how  like  chains  of  steel  were  the  bonds 
that  held  him  to  her. 

He  had  revolted  from  her  motherhood  because 
it  would  rob  her  figure  of  its  virginal  freshness; 
now  he  cared  not  at  all  for  that.  "What  if  it 
should  take  her  away,  should  leave  me  alone!" 
he  thought,  and  the  possibility  struck  terror  and 
anguish  into  him.  Often,  as  they  lay  side  by  side 

77 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


at  night,  he,  brooding  wakefully  upon  the  terrible 
thought,  would  slip  his  hand  softly  upon  her 
bosom,  to  feel  the  beating  of  her  heart,  to  make 
sure  that  she  was  still  alive;  and  as  the  strong, 
steady  swing  of  the  vivid  current  of  her  life  reas 
sured  him,  he  would  give  a  furtive  but  postponed 
sigh  of  happiness.  Again,  he  would  sit  up  in  bed, 
would  turn  on  the  carefully  shaded  night  lamp, 
and  by  its  dim  light  would  study  her  features — the 
coils  of  braided  hair,  so  thick,  so  fine,  so  aromatic; 
the  sweep  of  her  lashes  on  her  round  girlish  cheeks, 
flushed  with  sleep,  the  fine  nostrils  that  vibrated 
faintly  with  her  breath,  the  line  of  her  mouth, 
sweet  yet  firm.  And  it  was  not  passion  that 
thrilled  him ;  it  was  a  feeling  more  nearly  akin  to 
religious  exaltation.  And  when  he  would  take  her 
gently  in  his  arms  and  she,  without  waking,  would 
nestle  closer  to  him  and  murmur  inarticulately,  it 
was  not  love  of  her  beautiful  body  that  thrilled 
him,  but  love  of  her  personality — the  grace  and 
tenderness  that  emanated  from  her  to  envelop 
their  life  together.  Again,  as  they  sat  opposite 
each  other  at  table  or  side  by  side  driving,  he 

78 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


would  look  into  her  face  with  a  sudden  dread  lest 
she  no  longer  cared.  He  had  fallen  easily  into 
the  habit  of  taking  her  love  as  the  matter  of 
course,  had  assumed  that  her  chief  object  in  life 
was,  and  should  be,  pleasing  him.  Now,  he  won 
dered  that  she  could  have  cared  for  such  super 
cilious  selfishness  as  his.  "She  must  not  find  me 
out,"  he  said  to  himself.  "If  she  does  she  will 
detest  me." 

Doctor  Ranger — "Doctor  Madelene" — was 
her  physician;  but  he  insisted  on  having  Made- 
lene's  father,  old  Doctor  Schulze,  also.  And  he 
harassed  him  with  inquiries  and  urgings  about  the 
approaching  confinement.  Everything,  everything 
must  be  done.  Schulze,  with  his  rude  and  appar 
ently  unsympathetic  directness,  was  most  comfort 
ing.  "Don't  be  an  ass,"  said  he.  "She's  a  sound, 
healthy  woman.  Motherhood  is  as  natural  to  her 
as  any  other  function  of  the  body.  You  might  as 
well  be  wringing  your  hands  lest  she  should  choke 
to  death  while  eating  her  dinner.  In  the  name 
of  all  that's  humane,  don't  let  her  see  what's  going 
on  in  your  head.  If  you  watched  over  her  this 

79 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


way  when  she  was  eating,  she'd  swallow  her  fork 
from  sheer  nervousness." 

"I  wish  to  God  this  thing  had  been  stopped  1" 
cried  Joe. 

"Stopped!"  Schulze  fairly  shouted.  "Stopped? 
That  shows  your  ignorance,  sir.  She's  a  normal 
woman;  so,  each  and  every  one  of  her  organs  has 
its  normal  appetite — her  lungs  for  air,  her  stom 
ach  for  food,  her  womb  for  a  child.  And  their 
craving  must  be  satisfied.  In  heaven's  name,  what 
does  man  and  woman  mean  but  child?  The  truth 
about  you  is  you  are  distracted  by  the  cravings 
of  fatherhood,  and  don't  know  what  ails  you." 

At  this  Joe  laughed. 

"I  see  you  are  a  young  man  who  knows  little 
about  life  or  about  himself.  You'd  do  well  to 
educate  yourself.  Life  is  lover,  husband,  father; 
it  isn't  a  way  of  making  money  or  getting  fools  to 
chatter  about  you  or  selecting  the  loudest  patterns 
for  vests." 

"You  don't  like  my  waistcoat?"  said  Joe,  more 
cheerful  now. 

"Like  it?    Certainly  I  do.    I  wish  I  had  time 
80 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


to  hunt  for  such  things  and  money  to  buy  them. 
But  I  haven't."  And  Schulze  chuckled  and 
rubbed  his  round  red  button  of  a  nose. 

For  the  time  his  common  sense  quieted  Joe. 
But  fears  and  forebodings  gathered  afresh  when 
Normals  beauty  of  face  began  to  grow  ethereal, 
transparent,  as  if  it  were  bathed  in  the  dawn  light 
of  another  world.  Schulze  assured  him  that  this 
was  a  very  ordinary  phenomenon  in  such  cases; 
Joe  could  not  believe.  He  could  hardly  keep  his 
eyes  from  her  face;  but,  looking,  he  could  hardly 
refrain  from  seizing  her  and  showing  her  what 
was  agitating  his  heart.  She  moved  about  like 
one  in  a  dream  or  seeing  a  wonderful  vision.  Her 
smile,  sweet  and  soft  as  late  afternoon  sunshine, 
had  the  same  quality — the  melancholy  of  farewell. 

" What's  the  matter,  Joe?"  said  she,  catching  a 
glimpse  of  the  haunting  terror  in  his  eyes.  "You 
look  as  if  you  thought  I  were  going  to  have  some 
dreadful  experience." 

Joe  tried  to  force  a  reassuring  smile. 

She  laughed.  "Why,  I  never  felt  so  well  in 
my  life.  And  everybody  is  waiting  on  me  and 

81 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


acting  as  if  I  were  queen."  She  put  her  arms 
round  his  neck  and  he  left  her  tears  on  his  cheek. 
"Oh,  Joe — isn't  it  wonderful!  I've  never  before 
felt  completely  content.  Content?"  She  gave  a 
long  sigh  of  happiness.  "I  thought  I  knew  what 
love  was,  but  I  didn't." 

"Do  you  love  me,  Norma?"  he  murmured. 

"Love  you?  I  never  loved  you  until  now.  .  .  . 
Or  you  me,  Joe.  Isn't  it  so?" 

"Yes — yes !"  he  cried,  with  a  sob  that  was  also 
laughter.  "I  love  you !" 

He  was  walking  in  the  grounds  when  the  baby 
came.  It  was  not  expected  for  a  day  or  two. 
That  morning,  the  transparency  of  her  beauty 
had  been  so  terrible  that  he  could  not  bear  the 
sight  of  it.  "She  is  going  to  leave  me  alone,"  he 
said  to  himself  in  agony,  and  he  went  out  to  pace 
the  snow-cleared  paths  and,  though  it  was  bitter 
cold,  to  sweat  as  if  it  were  midsummer.  He 
heard  hurrying  feet  behind  him,  stopped  stock 
still,  leaned  faint  and  weak  against  a  tree.  It  was 
Williams,  his  valet.  "All  over,  sir,"  he  heard, 

82 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


and  the  voice  sounded  muffled  and  far  away.  He 
lost  consciousness  for  an  instant.  Then  into  his 
swimming  brain  came,  "And  it's  a  boy,  sir." 

"She  is  gone,  or  going,"  he  thought,  "and 
they're  keeping  it  from  me."  He  went  along  the 
path  to  the  house  with  Williams,  through  the  con 
servatory  and  the  morning  room,  up  the  stairs, 
into  her  dressing  room.  Several  people  were 
there — women,  but  he  could  not  see  their  faces. 
One  was  holding  a  small  bundle — was  holding  it 
out  toward  him.  He  saw  a  tiny,  copper  red  body 
— ugly,  wrinkled.  He  shuddered.  He  went — or 
did  they  lead  him? — into  the  bedroom.  She  was 
lying  there  white,  deathly  white,  and  with  an  ex 
pression  in  her  eyes  that  made  the  blood  leave  his 
heart.  He  dropped  on  his  knees  beside  her  and 
hid  his  face.  "Oh,  Normal  Norma,  my  love! 
Don't  leave  me.  I  cannot  live  without  you." 

There  came  a  sound  from  her — faint  and  weak, 
but  unmistakably  laughter.  "Whatever  put  that 
into  your  head?"  she  was  saying,  and  was  sliding 
her  fingers  between  his  face  and  the  covers,  to  his 
lips,  to  kiss  his  lips — for,  it  always  seemed  to  him 

83 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


that  when  he  kissed  those  slim,  magnetic  fingers 
of  hers,  they  returned  his  kisses.  "Why,  I'm 
perfectly  well.  There  was  almost  no  pain.  And, 
oh,  Joe,  isn't  he  beautiful?" 

Some  one's  hand  was  on  his  shoulder — Made- 
lene  Ranger's  hand — and  her  voice  was  saying, 
"You  mustn't  worry  her  now.  Come  away." 

"Worry  me?"  exclaimed  Norma.  "What  non 
sense.  I'm  not  an  invalid.  I'm — I'm  a  mother!" 

And  the  tone  in  which  she  said  it  made  Joe 
burst  out  crying. 

He  could  not  bear  the  sight  of  the  child.  It 
seemed  monstrously  ugly  to  him,  this  cause  of  her 
peril  and  of  his  sufferings  of  foreboding.  He 
looked  at  it  only  when  she  compelled;  it  lay 
against  her  heart  with  tiny  arms  waving  blindly 
about.  He  could  not  kiss  it,  when  she  asked  him 
to ;  but  he  did  overcome  his  repugnance  to  the  ex 
tent  of  advancing  his  finger  within  range  of  one 
of  those  hands — miserable,  shriveled  little  hands, 
yet  somehow  large  and  monstrously  out  of  pro 
portion,  like  its  great  wobbly  red  head  with  the 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


furry  wrinkled  scalp.  "Isn't  he  beautiful?"  she 
insisted.  Then  with  her  sense  of  humor  alert — 
"Beautiful  for  a  baby,  I  mean." 

"I  suppose  so,"  conceded  he,  trying  to  hide  his 
feelings. 

"But  it's  ours,  Joe — ours!" 

"So  it  is,"  said  Joe. 

She  laughed  again  and  kissed  and  petted  it. 
"Your  father  doesn't  appreciate  you,"  she  said  to 
it.  "But  your  mama  does.  So  you're  not  his  at 
all — just  hers." 

He  was  still  more  fiercely  in  revolt  against  the 
newcomer,  the  intruder,  this  worthless  and  homely 
trouble-causer,  when  he  saw  the  expression  in  her 
eyes  as  she  looked  at  it.  That  expression  meant 
love — a  passionate,  tigerlike  love,  a  love  that 
would  with  equal  readiness  live  or  die  for  the 
beloved.  And  he  felt  that  he  was  robbed.  Be 
tween  him  and  her  now  was  this  baby.  Before 
it  came,  it  had  threatened  to  rob  him  of  her;  now 
that  it  was  here,  it  had  fulfilled  its  threat  in  an 
other  way. 


ONE  morning  he  found  her  in  a  low  arm 
less  rocking  chair  before  the  grate  fire 
of  her  sitting  room.  Their  baby, 
whose  first  weak  wail  against  the  miseries  of  ex 
istence  had  been  heard  but  two  months  before, 
lay  flat  upon  his  back  in  her  lap.  He  was  swathed 
in  a  long  woolen  nightgown  which  bulged  rest 
lessly  under  the  impatience  of  his  legs.  She  was 
pinching  his  cheeks  and  smothering  him  with 
kisses.  This  caused  him  to  give  vent  to  bubbling 
gasps  of  delight,  and  to  wave  his  clenched  fists 
convulsively. 

When  she  saw  Joe  she  lifted  the  baby,  support 
ing  his  body  with  one  hand  and  his  uncertain  back 
with  the  other.  His  big  head,  fallen  forward, 
rolled  from  side  to  side,  while  his  bright  eyes 
stared  at  his  father  fixedly,  and  without  the  small 
est  gleam  of  intelligence.  Degarmo  smiled  con 
strainedly  and  put  one  forefinger  under  the  rather 

86 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


damp  chin.  As  the  child  showed  that  he  disap 
proved  of  the  change  of  position,  she  put  him 
in  her  lap  again  and  began  the  interrupted 
play. 

Degarmo  gazed  down  upon  it  with  an  irritated 
expression.  When  the  nurse  came  with  a  small 
tub  partly  filled  with  warm  water,  he  looked  ex 
tremely  awkward  and  out  of  place.  A  few  mo 
ments  of  uneasy  wandering  among  the  furniture, 
and  he  seated  himself  in  tentative  fashion  in  a 
deep  leather  chair  by  the  window.  As  he  watched 
the  two  women  and  the  baby,  a  feeling  of  isola 
tion  and  sadness  grew  upon  him.  When  the  nurse 
had  put  the  bath  on  the  rug  near  the  fire,  she 
pushed  to  Norma's  side  a  small  table  with  the 
articles  of  a  baby's  toilet.  While  the  child  was 
bathing,  the  mother  kept  up  a  steady  flow  of  talk 
at  times  addressed  to  the  father,  always  intended 
for  the  son.  She  took  off  the  long  woolen  gown. 
Then  she  lifted  the  child  and  laid  him  gently  in 
the  bath.  At  first  touch  of  the  water  he  clutched 
wildly  and  twisted  his  face  into  a  crimson  tangle ; 
but  the  warmth  and  safety  guaranteed  by  the 

8? 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


voice  and  fingers  of  the  mother  reassured  him, 
and  he  was  soon  splashing  and  kicking  as  widely 
as  the  narrowness  of  his  bath  allowed.  His  face 
reddened  and  puckered  as  she  lifted  him  to  the 
blanket  on  her  lap,  but  the  softness  of  the  fleecy 
towel  consoled  him.  At  last  she  was  done  and  he 
lay  straight  and  glowing,  his  eyes  closing  lan 
guidly.  The  talk  of  the  mother  ceased.  There 
was  silence  in  the  room  except  her  monotonous 
and  soothing  "Sh — h — h!  sh — h — h!"  as  she 
rocked  to  and  fro. 

Joe's  eyes  turned  away  impatiently  from  watch 
ing  her  admire  with  the  look  of  perfect  love  the 
beauty  of  the  smooth  round  form  in  her  lap.  The 
skin  of  the  child  was  soft  and  delicate.  Waves  of 
color,  first  pure  white,  then  rose  pink,  passed 
across  it  from  head  to  foot.  They  put  a  few 
clothes  upon  him  so  quietly  that  he  only  smiled 
and  did  not  waken.  The  nurse  left  the  room  and 
there  was  no  movement  or  sound  but  the  slow 
rocking  and  the  faint  "Sh — h — h!"  which  accom 
panied  it.  The  mother  looked  steadfastly  at  the 
child.  The  husband  watched  her  sadly. 

88 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


Just  as  they  had  begun  to  enter  the  garden  of 
married  happiness,  the  garden  where  the  passion 
flowers  either  wither  or  transform  into  the  never 
fading,  never  dying  flowers  of  love — just  then 
this  baby  was  born.  And  she  was  more  lost  to 
him  than  if  she  were  dead.  A  few  weeks  before, 
her  eyes  had  in  them  sparkle  and  the  frequent 
flash  of  passionate  love  for  him.  Now  those  eyes 
were  turned  to  him  with  tenderness,  but  with  a 
changed  tenderness  that  pained  him  keenly.  She 
was  still  young,  she  was  still  beautiful.  But  in 
those  few  days  the  quality  of  the  youth  and  the 
beauty  had  been  transformed.  Her  face  now 
shone  with  the  calmness  and  serenity  of  a  mother; 
and  the  sad  conviction  came  to  him  that  the  change 
was  final. 

As  she  sat  in  the  low  chair,  in  health  and 
strength  again,  he  studied  the  change  carefully, 
like  a  physician  diagnosing  his  own  mortal  mal 
ady.  He  had  been  trying  to  deceive  himself;  he 
could  deceive  himself  no  longer.  He  cared  for 
her  as  before;  more.  But  she,  sitting  there  with 
her  child,  cared  for  him  in  a  new  way.  The  child 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


was  first,  the  central  figure  in  her  life  henceforth. 
She  loved  the  father  through  the  child. 

In  the  days  of  their  courtship  she  had  said — 
and  he  had  believed — that  the  passing  of  years 
would  not  touch  them.  When  her  hair  would  be 
gray  and  his  hair  scant,  they  would  cling  together 
still,  excluding  everything  and  every  one  else. 
Now  all  this  was  thwarted,  brought  to  nought  in 
the  very  dawn  of  their  real  happiness.  The  girl 
wife  was  gone  with  no  hope  of  return.  This  small 
form  had  pushed  in  between.  Those  clenched 
hands,  so  feeble,  had  yet  battered  them  apart. 
They  must  come  to  each  other,  anew,  and  through 
the  child. 

He  seemed  to  himself  to  be  passing  away;  he 
felt  as  though  he  were  in  another  world,  looking 
across  a  wide  gulf  to  the  fireplace  where  the  child 
lay  in  the  mother's  lap.  And  he  thought,  with 
utter  lack  of  hope,  that  he  was  straining  his,  arms 
and  his  heart  in  vain.  The  instinct  love  which 
showed  in  her  eyes  as  she  looked  at  the  scarcely 
featured  child,  filled  him  with  bitterness.  uAnd 
as  time  passes,"  he  thought,  "this  will  not  grow 

90 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


less,  but  greater.  She  may  conceal  it  when  she 
finds  that  it  stabs  me,  but  her  real  heart  will  be 
barred  against  me.  She  will  care  for  me,  but  she 
will  plan,  and  scheme,  and  try  to  control  me  for 
his  sake — for  their  sake,  if  there  be  more." 

Then  he  thought  of  his  own  mother.  How  in 
tensely  she  had  loved  him;  how  often  had  she 
shielded  him  from  his  father !  And  he  wondered 
how  his  father  had  felt  at  first.  "He  certainly 
cared  for  me,  and  he  and  my  mother  lived  hap 
pily,  contentedly,  loving  their  children  before 
themselves."  Would  he,  too,  grow  to  care  for 
this  little  one  in  some  such  way  as  his  wife  now 
cared?  "Probably,"  he  said  to  himself,  sadly. 
"And  I  shall  be  content,  and  I  shall  forget  the 
happiness  that  might  have  been,  in  the  pride  and 
pleasure  that  are.  But  I  shall  be  the  loser,  for  I 
have  lost  her  exclusive  love.  I  shall  have  only  the 
second  place  in  her  heart,  and  in  the  heart  of  the 
child.  For  he  will  love  her  first.  He  will  be  first 
hers;  mine  through  her  only." 

While  Joe  was  searching  in  vain  for  consola 
tion,  Norma  also  was  thinking  of  the  change  in 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


their  relations.  She  realized  as  fully  as  he  that 
there  had  been  a  change,  a  transfer  of  love.  And 
in  a  certain  way  she  felt  sorry  for  him,  but  she 
had  no  regret  for  the  happiness  he  had  lost,  and 
she — Indeed,  she  was  wondering  how  she  could 
have  been  so  blind  then.  For  this  new  love  was 
so  sweet  to  her,  so  self-absorbing  and  self-deny 
ing!  How  strange,  how  wonderful,  how  satisfy 
ing  was  the  new  love — the  love  for  this  small  be 
ing  which  was  hers  through  the  miracle  of  birth, 
through  suffering  to  be  remembered  only  with 
gladness !  Flesh  of  her  flesh,  blood  of  her  blood, 
yet  a  separate  being.  She  realized  the  isolation 
of  her  husband,  and  yet  she  could  not  linger  upon 
it;  she  was  too  absorbed  with  her  son. 

"My  son!"  she  thought.  "My  son!'*  she  mur 
mured,  and  she  bent  to  kiss  him  softly,  while  the 
joy  of  maternal  possession  thrilled  through  her 
like  a  strong  wine.  Her  thoughts  leaped  along 
the  years,  picturing  him  as  he  would  be  when  he 
could  walk  and  talk,  when  he  should  be  a  school 
boy — youth — man ! — the  great  man  of  whom  she 
was  so  proud,  who  loved  her  so.  The  look  that 

92 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


came  into  her  face,  the  ecstatic  reflection  of  those 
delicious  dreams  cut  her  husband  to  the  quick.  He 
rose  and  stood  staring  bitterly  out  of  the  window 
at  the  phalanxes  of  snowflakes  charging  the  bare 
ice-crusted  boughs.  And  through  him,  like  a  cry 
of  despair,  boomed  the  thought:  "She  is  no 
longer  a  wife.  She  is  a  mother!" 

For  a  time  Joe  continued  to  flit  in  and  out  of 
her  daily  life,  an  uneasy,  forlorn  figure,  casting  a 
faint  shadow,  but  forgotten  as  soon  as  he  de 
parted.  Then  she  began  to  see  him  only  at  lunch 
and  dinner — then,  only  at  dinner — by  mid-sum 
mer  only  two  or  three  times  a  week.  Occasionally 
she  paused  to  say  to  herself,  "I  wonder  where 
Joe  is?"  But  she  never  paused  long  enough 
to  cast  about  for  an  answer.  All  her  time,  all  her 
thought  was  for  this  wonderful  baby  which,  sleep 
ing  or  waking,  she  dared  not  trust  out  of  her 
sight.  Not  a  night  but  she  waked  with  a  start, 
hearing  that  dreadful  music  of  the  Erlking  luring 
the  baby  away  from  her.  Not  even  the  scandal 
— the  really  huge  scandal — of  her  mother's  and 
father's  divorce  roused  her.  That  excitement 

93 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


was,  for  her,  like  a  brass  band  trying  to  make  it 
self  heard  under  the  windows  of  an  asylum  for 
the  deaf. 

In  September  her  brother  Charley  dropped  in 
on  his  way  home  from  the  country  club  to  say 
good-bye  to  her  before  going  off  east  to  school. 
He  confided  to  her  his  suspicions  that  their  mother 
was  thinking  of  marrying  again,  or,  rather,  was 
being  put  in  the  way  of  such  thoughts  by  her 
father's  artful  and  ambitious  Ex-Secretary  Bly- 
den.  She  listened  with  indifference.  This  irri 
tated  him.  He  looked  her  over  with  frankly 
critical  eyes.  "My,  but  you're  taking  on  fat," 
said  he. 

She  flushed. 

"You  do  look  maternal  1"  proceeded  he,  encour 
aged  by  her  expression  of  deep  annoyance. 
"Quite  middle-aged  in  bust  and  beam." 

"Don't  be  so  coarse,"  cried  she,  angrily. 

"I'm  nothing  like  as  coarse  as  you'll  soon  be  to 
look  at.  Here's  mother  waking  up  and  trying  to 
get  something  like  a  figure  back,  and  you  pile  it 
on  as  fast  as  she  loses." 

94 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


"I  don't  weigh  twenty  pounds  more  than  I  did 
a  year  ago,"  protested  she. 

"Loose  flesh,1'  replied  Charles.  "Bulk  without 
weight.  Worst  possible  kind.  Well,  Joe  ain't 
the  first  man  that's  married  a  sylph  and  had  her 
expand  into  a  side  show  freak.  My  eyes,  Norma, 
if  you  don't  wake  up  you'll  be  a  sight." 

Norma  knew  he  was  grossly  exaggerating;  still 
there  was — well,  a  grain  of  truth  in  these  sland 
ers.  And,  with  her  mother's  fate  vivid  in  her 
memory,  she  could  not  but  shrink  and  shudder — 
especially  as  she  was  in  face  and  figure  "Sophy 
over  again." 

"What  you  reading?"  continued  Charles,  tak 
ing  her  dropped  book  from  her  lap.  "One  of 
those  'Young  Mothers'  Guides.'  Poor  Joey!" 

It  was,  in  fact,  one  of  the  fifty  or  more  books 
on  maternity  and  infancy  with  which  Norma,  the 
"thorough,"  had  provided  herself.  "You're  posi 
tively  intolerable  to-day!"  exclaimed  she. 

"Don't  see  Joe  much,  these  days,  do  you?"  in 
quired  he. 

She  frowned  sullenly.    "I  wish  you'd  go." 

95 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


"Well — Mazie  Bramwell  does/*  pursued  he. 
"Know  she  was  back?" 

"She  doesn't  interest  me,"  said  Norma. 

"Well,  she  does  Joe,"  retorted  Charley.  "She's 
brought  a  whole  ship  load  of  Paris  dresses — and 
lingerie.  She's  on  daily  exhibition  at  the  club — 
always  with  Joe  in  train.  You  know  she  wanted 
him,  and  hated  you  for  getting  him.  Guess  she's 
looking  for  revenge." 

"I'll  not  listen  to  such — such  lies,"  cried 
Norma,  starting  up. 

"You'd  better,"  advised  the  young  brother 
coolly.  "And  you'd  better  hump  yourself,  too. 
These  are  dangerous  days  for  the  female  rotter." 

Norma  rushed  from  the  room.  When  she  was 
sure  Charley  had  gone  she  returned,  got  her  book, 
went  to  sit  where  she  could  see  her  baby  by  merely 
lifting  her  eyes,  could  be  deliciously  conscious  of 
his  presence,  as  she  read.  This,  for  perhaps  half 
an  hour;  then  the  graceful,  alluring  figure  of 
Mazie  Bramwell,  in  Paris  dress — and  lingerie — 
began  to  trail  tauntingly  to  and  fro  between  her 
eyes  and  the  printed  page. 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


A  brief  struggle,  and  she  dropped  the  book, 
and  began  to  think. 

She  could  not  deny  that  the  baby  had  crowded 
Joe  from  the  hearth  of  her  heart — had  even 
crowded  him  entirely  out  of  her  heart.  "No,  I 
don't  think  of  Joe,  of  our  present,  our  future,  as 
I  used  to,"  she  said  to  herself.  Her  eyes  sought 
her  baby's  face.  "How  can  I,  now  that  I  have 
him?"  And  the  blood  thrilled,  and  her  eyes 
dimmed  with  tears  of  pride  and  love  and  happi 
ness.  This  little  stranger,  whom  she  had  intro 
duced  to  life,  had  brought  perhaps  from  some 
happy  place  to  endure  sorrows  and  anxieties  and 
regrets  in  the  flesh — this  helpless  being,  needing 

attention  every  moment "I   can't  neglect 

him !  It  would  be  wicked  to  trust  him  to  others. 
.  .  .  No,  I  will  not! — not  even  if  I  lose  my 
looks  and  my  husband.  If  that  was  how  mother 
lost  father,  then  she  was  well  rid  of  him. 
Why  shouldn't  Joe  spend  more  time  at  home? 
Isn't  he  a  father !  He  ought  not  to  put  the  whole 
burden  on  me "  She  smiled  at  her  unfair 
ness — "as  if  I'd  let  anybody  but  myself  do  for 

97 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


the  baby.  .  .  .  Poor  Joe !  It  must  be  dull 
for  him.  .  .  .  What  am  I  to  do?  And  he 
doesn't  take  the  least  interest  in  his  son — not  the 
least." 

The  reason  flashed  upon  her.     "How  absurd 
of  him,"  she  thought.  "Jealous  of  his  own  child!" 

Yet She  knew  that  country  club  set  well.    It 

was  of  the  same  sort  that  is  found  in  every  Ameri 
can  large  town  and  city  nowadays — idle,  well 
dressed,  good  looking  young  people ;  with  nothing 
to  do  since  their  parents  did  so  well ;  with  nothing 
to  think  about  but  mischief;  drinking  a  great  deal, 
flirting  and  gambling  and  gossiping — leading  the 
fashionable  life  which  so  many  hard  working 
people  view  from  afar  enviously  and  about  which 
so  many  hard-working  writers  disseminate  glit 
tering  romancings.  It  bored  Norma,  as  it  bored 
those  leading  it;  she  differed  from  them  in  that 
she  had  character  and  energy,  and  so  did  not  in 
dolently  submit  to  its  monotonous  routine  of  in 
anities.  And  she  knew  that  it  bored  Joe.  "I've 
driven  him  back  to  it.  Just  when  he  needed  me 
most,  IVe  failed  him." 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


At  six  o'clock  the  butler  brought  up  the  usual 
message — "Mr.  Degarmo  telephones  from  the 
club  that  he'll  not  be  home  to  dinner."  She  did 
not  say,  "Very  well"  in  her  wonted  indifferent 
tone,  though  she  said  it,  there  being  nothing  else 
to  say. 

When  toward  midnight  Joe  opened  the  library 
door,  he  started  back  in  astonishment;  there  sat 
Norma  in  evening  dress.  Since  the  baby  came 
she  had  left  off  dressing  for  dinner,  had  kept  as 
much  of  the  time  as  she  could  to  costumes  that 
made  her  free  to  serve  him,  in  however  humble  a 
capacity,  at  an  instant's  notice.  A  charming  pic 
ture  she  was,  with  her  fine  shoulders  bare,  and 
her  beautiful  throat  at  its  best,  supporting  so 
gracefully  her  shapely  head.  And  the  picture 
was  complete  when  she  looked  up  from  her  book 
with  a  smile.  "Hello,  Joe,"  cried  she. 

"What's  the  matter?"  said  he,  rather  curtly. 
"Baby  sick?" 

"No  indeed.  He's  too  well  taken  care  of  for 
that." 

He  lit  a  cigarette,  dropped  into  a  big  chair, 
99 


DEGARMO'S  WIFE 


spread  himself  at  his  ease.  The  faint  odor  of 
liquor  came  to  her,  mingled  with  his  smoke.  She 
studied  his  face.  It  was  sullen  and  sad,  bored; 
the  lines  at  the  corners  of  his  eyes  were  very  dis 
tinct.  Though  he  had  a  coat  of  bronze  on  his 
skin,  he  did  not  look  well. 

"Rather  late  for  you  to  be  up — what?"  said 
he.  "The  baby  usually  routs  you  out  about  dawn, 
doesn't  he  ?" 

"I  felt  lonely  to-night,"  replied  she.  "I  wanted 
to  see  you.  I  suddenly  realized  you  weren't 
here" — there  was  just  the  faintest  catch  in  her 
voice — "and  the  house  seemed  dreary  and 
empty." 

He  glanced  quickly  at  her.  "I  hate  sitting 
about,"  said  he,  gruffly.  "I  can't  spend  my  whole 
life  watching  you  fool  with  that  brat." 

She  laughed.  "The  brat  being  your  son."  She 
stood  by  his  chair.  "Would  you  mind  if  I — sat 
in  your  lap?" 

He  stared  up  at  her. 

"I  don't  wonder  you  hesitate,"  she  went  on, 
cheerfully.  She  turned  slowly  round.  "Charley 

100 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


says  I'm  getting  a  back  and  hips.    I'm  afraid  it's 
so.     I  weigh  more  than  I  did." 

He  eyed  her  figure,  at  first  rather  sourly,  but 
with  a  gradually  softening  expression.  It  wasn't 
quite  so  girlish  as  when  she  was  exercising  regu 
larly;  but  it  was  still  a  very  beautiful,  sinuous  fig 
ure.  "Charley's  an  ass,"  said  he. 

"I'm  ashamed  of  myself,"  she  went  on,  seating 
herself  on  his  knees.  "I  must  get  out  and  put 
myself  in  condition.  I've  no  patience  with  women 
who  let  themselves  go.  The  time  to  fight  bust 
and  hips  is  before,  not  after." 

She  was  sitting  up  very  stiff,  was  looking  down 
into  his  eyes,  a  tender,  alluring  little  smile  in  her 
eyes  and  about  her  lips.  "How  unsocial  you 
are,"  she  hinted. 

"To  tell  you  the  truth,  I've  been  drinking,"  ex 
plained  he,  shamefaced.  "I  smell  like  a  bar." 

She  slid  down  against  his  breast,  put  her  cheek 
against  his.  "Do  you  love  me,  Joe?"  she  mur 
mured. 

"More  than  you  deserve." 

"Will  you  forgive  me?" 
101 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


"For  what?" 

"For  neglecting  myself  and  you." 

"Surely  you're  not  tired  of  your  plaything  in 
the  crib  upstairs."  He  listened.  "I  thought  I 
heard  him  cry." 

She  laughed.  "No,  you  didn't.  I  got  a  nurse 
this  afternoon." 

"A  nurse!"  Joe  sat  up,  held  her  from  him 
where  he  could  look  at  her.  "Well,  I'll  be 
hanged!"  he  exclaimed.  "Why,  I  thought  you 
were  dead  against  nurses." 

"I  got  to  thinking  about — about " 

"Your  figure." 

"Yes,"  she  agreed.  ujoe,  do  you  love  me — 
still?" 

He  looked  at  her,  touched  her  temple  with  his 
forefinger.  "Now,  I  wonder  what's  going  on  in 
this  little  head  of  yours?  There's  something  back 
of  this." 

Her  eyes  were  clear  and  steady  and  wistful. 
"Only  what  you  see,"  she  assured  him.  "I  want 
you,  Joe  .  .  .  I'm  the  mother  of  your  boy, 
but — "  with  her  cheek  against  his,  and  her  voice 

102 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


so  low  that  he  could  just  hear — "I'm  your  wife, 
first  of  all.  I  didn't  marry  a  father  ...  I 
married  a — lover." 

"Is  that  in  your  heart,  Norma?" 

"In  my  heart,  Joe." 

He  kissed  her  on  the  lips.  "And  in  your  life, 
too,"  said  he.  "Norma,  you've  come  back!" 

"Back  home,"  she  said,  nestling  against  his 
breast. 

She  went  for  a  long  walk  with  Joe  after  break 
fast  the  next  morning.  Though  she  thought  of 
the  baby  constantly,  pictured  him  in  all  manner 
of  dire  necessities,  she  never  spoke  of  him.  She 
went  to  the  club  with  him  in  the  afternoon,  would 
have  dined  with  him  there  if  he  had  not  insisted 
that  he  preferred  dining  at  home.  When  he  had 
dressed,  he  came  into  her  dressing  room.  There 
was  a  highboy  where  the  baby's  crib  had  been. 
"Why,  where's  the  master  of  the  house?"  he  ex 
claimed. 

"Across  the  hall,"  said  Norma,  with  suspicious 
carelessness.  "That's  to  be  the  nursery.  Mrs. 
Creighton  has  him  in  her  bedroom.  Please  hook 

103 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


my  back."  As  they  started  down  to  dinner,  she 
said,  "Wait  a  second.  I  want  to  say  good-night 
to  your  son." 

She  went  into  the  big,  high-ceilinged  room 
where  the  baby  was  sleeping  contentedly.  He  was 
lying  on  his  back,  his  small  fists  clenched  upon  his 
chest  that  stood  up  as  if  he  had  a  cushion  stuffed 
up  into  his  night-gown.  She  bent  over  and  kissed 
him.  When  she  stood  up  straight  again,  Joe  was 
beside  her.  She  liked  the  look  in  his  face  as  he 
studied  the  fat,  pink  face  of  his  son. 

"Kiss  him,"  she  suggested,  "he  won't  wake." 

Joe  bent  and  awkwardly  kissed  one  of  the 
clenched  fists.  "Gad,  there's  a  chest!"  he  mut 
tered. 

"Just  like  yours,"  Norma  assured  him.  "He's 
you,  over  again — even  to  little  tricks  with  his  eyes 
and  the  way  his  ears  are  put  on." 

They  went  out  together,  and  the  baby  was  not 
mentioned  again.  She  played  and  sang  for  him, 
and  for  an  hour  before  going  to  bed  they  walked 
up  and  down  in  the  moonlight,  soothed  and  drawn 
together  in  a  mood  of  tenderness  by  the  soft  air, 

104 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


heavy  laden  with  the  sensuous  perfume  of  the 
honeysuckles.  It  was  as  if  they  had  just  become 
engaged. 

A  week,  two  weeks  passed,  and  still  Norma 
was  wife  all  the  time  and  was  leaving  the  posi 
tion  of  mother  to  Mrs.  Creighton.  One  after 
noon  she  came  home  from  her  mother's  to  find 
Joe  rolling  the  baby  on  the  grass  and  playing 
with  it  as  if  he  were  a  big  Newfoundland  dog. 
He  looked  sheepish  at  being  caught. 

"Amusing  little  animal,  isn't  he?"  said  he. 

"It  is  fun  to  watch  him  grow." 

"Wonderful,  isn't  it?  Something  new  every 
day." 

Norma  went  into  the  house,  as  if  she  were  only 
mildly  interested.  Joe  didn't  dream  that,  as  he 
resumed  his  undignified  antics,  disguised  as  studies 
in  infant  psychology,  she  was  peeping  at  him  from 
her  sitting-room  window. 

A  few  more  days  and  Joe's  paternal  conscience 
began  to  stir.  He  had  his  full  share  of  male  rev 
erence  for  consistency;  so,  it  was  impossible  for 
him  to  disclose  himself  frankly.  It  was  after 

105 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


dinner,  and  she  was  playing  softly,  while  he  laid 
curled  up  in  the  wide  window  seat  smoking.  "You 
don't  seem  to  see  as  much  of  the  young  one  as  you 
did  at  first,"  he  began. 

"No,"  replied  she,  not  pausing  in  her  playing. 
"One  hears  a  great  deal  about  weaning  the  baby, 
but  until  I  had  experience  I  didn't  know  there  was 
the  equally  important  weaning  of  the  mother." 

"Urn!"  groaned  Joe. 

Several  minutes  of  silent  smoking  and  appar 
ently  absorbed  playing.  Then  Joe  again:  "I 
suppose  that's  because  most  mothers  don't  need 
to  be  weaned.  They're  only  too  glad  to  shift  it 
all  to  a  nurse." 

She  made  no  reply.  He  resumed  his  aston 
ished  contemplation  of  his  own  folly  in  not  having 
realized  that  what  he  regarded  as  weak-minded 
ness  in  Norma  was  in  fact  a  very  high  and  noble 
virtue. 

"However,"  she  said  at  length,  "I'm  gradually 
getting  resigned  to  Mrs.  Creighton." 

"Um!"  grunted  Joe.  Another  long  pause. 
"You  think  Mrs.  Creighton's  all  right?" 

106 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


"Rather!"  exclaimed  Norma,  whirling  round 
on  the  piano  stool.  "You  don't  imagine  I'd  trust 
my " 

"There — there — don't  leap  in  the  air,"  soothed 

Joe.     "It  just  occurred  to  me  that Well,  no 

matter  how  good,  and  all  that  she  is,  she  can't 
feel  toward  him  as  if  he  were  her  own  child — 
can  she  now  ?" 

"No,  I  suppose  not,"  conceded  Norma,  with 
reluctance. 

"They  tell  me,"  continued  Joe,  abstractedly, 
"that  the  first  year  or  so  of  a  baby's  life  is  the 
most  important,  that  then's  when  most  of  'em  are 
spoiled.  They  say  they  get  all  sort  of  diseases 
through  neglect — not  out  and  out  neglect,  but 
carelessness — and  the  diseases  develop  later  on — 
colds  and  weak  eyes — and  indigestion — and  all 
that.  And  they  say  it's  particularly  bad  about 
their  dispositions.  An  ill-tempered  or  ignorant 
or  low-minded  nurse,  for  instance " 

Norma  watched  his  face  as  long  as  she  could 
contain  herself.  She  turned  toward  the  keyboard 

with,  "But  Mrs.  Creighton " 

107 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


"Certainly  not — certainly  not,"  Joe  assured  her 
soothingly.  "I  was  simply  making  conversation." 

"Oh,"  said  Norma,  sweetly. 

"But,  after  all" — Joe  sat  up — "what  do  we 
know  about  this  Mrs.  Creighton?  She  seems  a 
pleasant,  capable  woman,  I  grant  you.  But,  you'd 
hardly  select  her  as  a  companion  for  yourself." 

Normals  fingers  ran  over  the  keys  lightly. 
"Really,  you  can't  expect  a  woman  who's  willing 
to  hire  out  as  a  baby's  nurse  to  be  a  prodigy  in 
mind  or  manners,  Joe." 

"That's  just  it,"  exclaimed  Joe,  triumphantly. 
"So,  I  fancy,  the  first  thing  we  know,  the  little 
chap'll  be  picking  up  all  sorts  of  tricks  we 
don't  care  about.  He'll  be  talking  soon,  won't 
he?" 

"He'll  burst  out — quite  suddenly — in  about  a 
month." 

"Really,"  cried  Joe,  much  interested.  "Really 
now!  Isn't  that  extraordinary!" 

"Oh,  it's  the  way  with  all  babies,"  rejoined 
Norma,  carelessly. 

"Um,"  grunted  Joe,  abashed.  But  soon  he  was 
108 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


at  it  again.  "If  he  sees  much  of  this  Mrs.  Creigh- 
ton,  he'll  talk  like  her.  It  don't  look  as  if  we 
were  giving  the  little  chap  quite  a  fair  chance, 
does  it?" 

Norma  rose  and  leaned  across  the  corner  of 
the  piano.  "No,  it  doesn't,  now  that  you  put  it 
that  way,"  replied  she,  grave  and  thoughtful. 
"I'm  so  glad  you  said  these  things,  Joe.  The 
child  ought  to  be  more  with  us,  oughtn't  he  ?" 

"That's  how  it  seems  to  me,"  said  Joe,  de 
lighted  with  his  diplomacy. 

"Do  you  think  I  ought  to  send  Mrs.  Creighton 
away?" 

"Oh,  no — not  at  all,"  protested  he,  settling 
back  comfortably  among  the  cushions.  "That 

wouldn't  be  fair  to  you.  But Well,  the 

little  chap  sleeps  a  good  deal  of  the  time,  and  he's 
pretty  regular  about  it." 

"She  couldn't  do  him  any  harm  while  he  was 
asleep,  could  she?" 

"I  should  say  not,"  conceded  the  father,  with 
judicial  thoughtfulness  and  precision.  "That  is, 
if  somebody  who  really  cared  about  him  looked 

109 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


in  now  and  then,  to  see  that  he  wasn't  catching 
cold  or  being  fed  with  some  rotten  syrup.  They 
tell  me  all  these  hired  nurses  are  the  very  devil 
for  syrups." 

"I  guess  I  oughtn't  to  trust  even  Mrs.  Creigh- 
ton  too  far." 

"There  it  is!"  exclaimed  Joe.  "You've  got 
my  point  exactly.  I've  been  thinking  it  over, 
Norma.  After  all,  we've  brought  the  little  fellow 
into  the  world.  We're  responsible  for  him.  And 
it  does  make  a  big  difference  how  children  are 
started.  Gad,  if  you  and  I  had  been  brought  up 
by  hand,  as  the  Rangers  were,  I  guess  we'd  be  the 
better  for  it." 

"I  never  shall  get  over  my  nurses,"  said 
Norma.  "And  I  made  up  my  mind  that  if  I  ever 
had  children  I'd  bring  them  up  myself.  But,"  she 
sighed,  hypocritically,  "the  temptation  not  to  do 
it  is  strong." 

"Yes,  it  is,"  admitted  Joe.  "But" — very  reso 
lutely — "Norma,  we've  got  duty  cut  out  for  us, 
and  we've  got  to  try  to  do  it." 

"If  you'll  help,  Joe.  I  hate  a  boy  that's  left 
no 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


entirely  to  women.    A  boy  needs  a  father,  right 
from  the  start." 

"I'll  do  my  share,"  said  he,  encouragingly. 

And  he  never  knew.  When  a  man  finds  he  can 
manage  a  woman,  he  begins  to  tyrannize  and  de 
spise;  but  when  a  woman  finds  that  she  can  by 
diplomacy  seduce  her  husband  into  the  ways  of 
sanity  and  sense  in  which  women  walk  so  much 
more  steadily  and  naturally  than  impulsive,  pas 
sionate,  vagrant  man,  she  loves  him  the  more 
deeply.  There  was  all  the  tenderness  in  Normals 
caresses  that  night,  and  added  to  it  a  new  tender 
ness;  for,  she  felt  that  her  baby  had  an  elder 
brother,  one  that  was  extremely  proud  of  the  po 
sition,  jealous  of  its  prerogatives  and  eager  for 
all  its  responsibilities.  But  she  did  not  feel  en 
tirely  sure  of  him  until  he  addressed  her  as 
"mother" — with  a  blush  and  a  grin,  as  if  it  were 
a  ticklish  kind  of  joke. 

She  blushed,  smiled,  with  tears  welling  up  into 
her  eyes.  "I  like  that!"  she  said.  "Don't  you?" 

He  looked  guiltily  round  as  if  he  feared  a  burst 
in 


DEGARMO'S   WIFE 


of  mocking  laughter  from  New  York — and  from 
his  past.  But  he  said,  resolutely,  if  somewhat 
sheepishly,  "Yes." 

"Even  if  Tony  heard?" 

He  hesitated;  then,  "Tony  be — be  jiggered!" 


112 


ENID 


ENID 


COURTSHIP 

TENNYSON  was  the  literary  idol  of  the 
moment  among  the  cultured  of  Les 
ter,  Pennsylvania,  when  the  wife  of 
its  leading  drygoods  merchant  gave  birth  to  a 
daughter.  As  Mrs.  Dr.  Carmine,  bearing  a 
daughter,  also,  but  unluckily  a  week  earlier,  had 
appropriated  the  name  Elaine,  Mrs.  Holmes  was 
forced  to  fall  back  upon  her  second  choice.  Thus 
it  chanced  that  it  was  not  Elaine  Holmes,  but 
Enid  Holmes  who  grew  up  into  one  of  Lester's 
most  attractive  girls.  After  the  manner  of  girls 
preparing  themselves — not  exactly  consciously, 
yet  not  wholly  unconsciously,  either — to  make  an 
advantageous  bargain  in  the  matrimonial  market, 
Enid  Holmes  took  careful  stock  of  her  physical 

"5 


ENID 


points  at  an  early  age,  and,  with  a  shrewdness 
that  augured  well  for  the  future,  proceeded  to 
make  the  best  of  them. 

By  the  time  Enid  was  eighteen  the  Tennyson 
cult  had  long  since  departed,  and  the  craze  of 
the  hour  was  for  the  weird  and  mysterious.  Na 
ture  had  dealt  kindly  with  Enid  in  the  matter  of 
raw  materials  for  taking  advantage  of  this  fasci 
nating  cult,  and  she  was  soon  easily  the  best  in 
Lester  at  it.  She  was  neither  tall  nor  short.  She 
had  a  strangely  narrow  figure,  that  lent  itself  to 
the  lines  of  the  weird,  wan  and  whimsical  style  of 
dress.  She  had  a  long,  slim,  but  well-shaped 
neck,  a  small  head,  a  thin,  eager  face.  She  had 
hair  of  an  auburn  hue  that,  without  the  use  of 
dyes  or  chemicals  or  such  vulgar  devices,  but 
merely  by  putting  a  little  soda  in  the  water, 
changed  to  a  coppery,  or,  rather,-  bronze  hue. 
This  hair,  which  was  abundant,  she  wore  in  a 
loose,  expansive  fashion.  Looking  at  her  you 
saw  first  the  masses  of  hair,  then  the  wistful,  rest 
less,  light-brown  eyes,  then  a  wide,  sensuous 
mouth,  very  wide,  indeed,  for  so  small  a  head  and 

116 


ENID 


face — and  finally,  the  narrow,  nervous  figure, 
squirming  intolerantly  in  the  tight-fitting,  tight- 
skirted  dress.  That  figure  might  have  been  boy 
ish,  so  straight  and  strong  were  its  lines,  but  for 
its  subtle,  insinuating  feminine  curves,  like  shy 
hints  to  remind  man  of  woman. 

The  general  effect  of  Enid's  pose  was  surpass 
ingly  good.  Of  all  the  girls,  each  striving  accord 
ing  to  her  own  taste,  to  make  the  best  of  her 
charms,  Enid  was  the  most  successful  in  effacing 
all  suggestion  of  pose.  In  male  presence  she 
most  of  the  time  sat  silent,  asking  a  question 
now  and  then,  watching  the  man  with  eager,  mys 
terious  eyes,  squirming  about  in  her  chair,  and  in 
her  dress  with  arresting  grace  and  charm.  When 
she  allowed  herself  to  speak,  she  abruptly  poured 
out  in  a  low,  intense  voice  a  flood  of  words — no 
matter  what;  she  had  conversation,  or  rather, 
ideas  for  conversation,  suitable  to  her  physical 
pose,  ready  for  all  subjects  likely  to  come  up 
between  a  man  and  a  girl. 

She  had  reputation  for  intelligence  and  for 
culture.  In  fact,  she  used  her  brains  only  so 

1*7 


ENID 


much  as  was  necessary  to  round  out  the  pose. 
She  professed  the  keenest  interest  in  literature, 
art,  the  occult.  In  fact,  she  thought  only  of 
men  and  of  getting  married — the  same  subjects 
that  secretly  enchained  the  attention  of  all  the 
Lester  girls. 

Her  father  had  been  dead  many  years,  leav 
ing  nothing  but  the  life  insurance,  twenty  thou 
sand  dollars  so  invested  that  it  paid  about  eight 
per  cent.  In  Lester,  a  family  of  two,  owning 
their  house  and  having  sixteen  hundred  a  year, 
was  more  than  comfortable.  Mrs.  Holmes,  an 
inveterate  old  novel  drunkard,  but  with  a  streak 
of  lazy  feminine  shrewdness,  was  regarded  as  a 
doting  mother  because  she  invested  all  she  could 
spare  in  making  Enid  attractive  to  look  at  and 
in  giving  her  chances  to  be  thrown  with  the 
young  men.  She  never  spoke  to  Enid  of  Enid's 
marrying.  When  she  spoke  to  others  of  it,  she 
said  that  the  event  would  be  the  most  doleful  of 
calamities.  "I'll  be  left  all  alone,  but,  of  course, 
my  daughter  must  have  her  romance.  What  is 
life — what  is  youth — without  romance?" 

118 


ENID 


The  lower  animals  are  all  about  us,  and  are 
constantly  educating  their  young,  yet  how  little 
we  are  able  to  find  out,  closely  though  we  ob 
serve,  as  to  the  schooling  the  mother  dog  gives 
her  puppy,  the  mother  cat  her  kitten,  the  mother 
bird  her  chick.  Not  less  mysterious  is  the  train 
ing  the  mother  human  gives  her  daughter  in  the 
essentials  of  the  art  of  pleasing  and  teasing  the 
man  to  the  point  where  he  will  timidly  stammer 
out  to  Miss-Shy-and-Scared-Innocence  a  humble 
petition  that  she  let  him  undertake  the  noble  en 
terprise  of  being  her  slave.  Mrs.  Holmes,  ap 
parently  steeped  in  novelism  and  sentimentalism 
as  the  dyer's  cloth  in  the  dye,  yet  contrived  to 
train  her  daughter  to  have  not  a  little  good 
sense,  for  all  her  romantic  ideals.  Not  too  much 
good  sense — not  enough,  not  nearly  enough,  to 
spoil  her  generous  sweetness  with  any  ugly  tinge 
of  calculation.  No,  indeed!  Mrs.  Holmes  was 
not  so  foolish;  neither  was  she  herself  calculat 
ing,  except  as  all  who  have  lived  have  learned 
that  there  are  such  problems  as  food,  clothing, 
shelter,  bills,  incomes,  and  that  these  problems 

119 


ENID 


play  a  somewhat  larger  part  in  life  than  they 
play  in  novels. 

It  was  not  because  the  young  women  of  Lester 
were  unusually  mercenary  that  Walter  Prescott 
became  popular  as  soon  as  he  appeared  in  Les 
ter  society.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  neither  was 
that  popularity  wholly  due  to  his  being  good 
looking  and  of  agreeable  manners. 

Samuel  Prescott,  the  father  of  Walter, 
wished  to  remove  his  stove  foundry  from  Har- 
risburg  to  a  place  where  his  hands  could  live 
more  cheaply — therefore,  work  more  cheaply. 
Lester  offered  him  a  free  site,  release  from  taxes 
for  fifteen  years,  a  stock  subscription  and  some 
other  advantages.  So,  Walter  Prescott,  his  fa 
ther's  partner,  became  one  of  the  leaders  of  Les 
ter  society.  Walter  was  not  married,  and  told 
everyone — and  believed — that  he  never  intended 
to  marry.  But  this  kind  of  talk  no  more  dis 
couraged  the  girls  than  their  own  noisy  accept 
ance  of  "modern"  attacks  on  the  institution  of 
matrimony  discouraged  the  boys.  It  is  no  new 
thing  in  the  world  for  both  merchant  and  cus- 

120 


ENID 


tomer  to  come  to  market  protesting — and  be 
lieving,  or  trying  to  believe — that  they  are 
merely  "looking  round"  and  have  no  intention  to 
do  business. 

When  Walter  appeared,  Enid  Holmes  was 
visiting  in  Pittsburg,  was  intending  to  spend  the 
winter  there.  And  Walter  was  intending  to  de 
part  in  February  for  a  tour  round  the  world,  per 
haps  not  to  return  to  Lester,  but  to  take  charge 
of  the  office  in  Philadelphia.  Here  we  evidently 
have  the  beginnings  of  a  plain  case  of  romantic 
fatality.  The  world  is  full  of  interesting  young 
men  and  interesting  young  women,  young  people 
ready  to  mate  and  suitable  for  any  taste  from 
the  simplest  to  the  most  whimsical.  There  is 
nothing  astoundingly  "different"  about  any  hu 
man  being,  either  within  or  without;  there  is 
no  human  being  who  has  not  something  peculiar 
and  wonderful  in  him  or  her.  The  arrange 
ments  for  pairing  off,  therefore,  call  for  no  spe 
cial  interventions  of  fate.  But  where's  the  harm 
in  a  little  mysticism,  if  one  fancies  that  sort  of 
thing?  Mrs.  Holmes  became  indisposed;  her 

121 


ENID 


daughter  found  it  out  in  a  roundabout  way  and 
hastened  home.  Samuel  Prescott  decided  to  go 
away  himself,  instead  of  letting  his  son  go;  Wal 
ter  was  there  when  Enid  arrived. 

Joe  Carmine  brought  Walter  to  call  a  few 
evenings  after  her  return.  Said  he  to  Walter: 

"You  haven't  seen  that  little  Enid  Holmes, 
have  you?  She's  the  town  headliner — the  best 
we've  got,  I  think.  Not  much  of  a  figure,  as 
figures  go — and  yet — somehow — well,  she's  all 
right.  Looks  all  hair  and  eyes  and  mouth.  Talks 
a  little  lofty — like  most  of  the  girls  nowadays — 
but  she'll  do." 

Walter  had  inspected  all  the  Lester  offerings 
— of  his  own  class,  of  course.  He  had  seen  noth 
ing  to  shake  his  resolution  never  to  be  one  of 
those  "ridiculous  married  men,  tied  down  to  one 
tiresome  woman  and  a  bunch  of  bellowing  brats, 
by  gad."  The  other  girls  didn't  amuse  him, 
didn't  stimulate  him.  "Just  girls,"  he  said  to 
himself.  "What's  more  tiresome  than  just  girls? 
No  sense,  no  originality,  no  variety."  He  had 
not  the  least  confidence  in  Joe  Carmine's  judg- 

122 


ENID 


ment.  Still,  there  being  nothing  better  to  do, 
why  not  go?  "You  must  get  me  away  early,'1 
said  he  to  Joe. 

"We'll  stay  till  she  puts  us  out,"  replied  Joe. 
"She    knows    how,    she    does.      Take    it    from 


me." 


You  may  be  sure  that  Enid  had  spared  no 
pains  in  preparing  herself  for  the  visit  of  one 
whose  fame  was  in  her  ears  as  soon  as  she  re 
turned.  You  may  be  sure  that  the  arrangement 
of  lights  in  the  pleasant  little  parlor  of  the 
Holmes  house  was  well  adapted  to  the  pose  in 
general  and  to  the  color  scheme  it  was  wearing 
that  evening.  Walter  was  enraptured  at  first 
view.  He  thought  he  had  never  seen  female 
so  strange  and  fascinating.  All  hair,  eyes  and 
mouth,  indeed.  And  what  a  thrill  in  the  touch 
of  that  cool,  slim  hand,  given  in  graceful  gesture 
of  welcome!  He  had  rather  liked  girls  with 
figure.  He  realized  now  how  crude  his  taste 
had  been.  This  boyish  figure  that  now  and  then, 
with  the  most  subtle  and  covert  of  hints,  pro 
claimed  itself  softly  and  sinuously  feminine* 

123 


ENID 


Walter  and  Joe  did,  indeed,  stay  until  they  dared 
stay  no  longer. 

"Eleven  o'clock !"  exclaimed  Joe,  as  they  came 
in  sight  of  the  jeweler's  clock  on  the  way  home. 
"She  never  let  anybody  stay  that  late  before.  I 
guess  she  was  polite  because  you  are  a  stranger." 

Walter  did  not  disturb  in  its  repose  deep  in 
his  manly  bosom  another  explanation  of  her  gra- 
ciousness. 

"Wasn't  I  right  about  her?"  inquired  Car 
mine.  "Isn't  she  a  winner?" 

"A  very  charming  girl,"  said  Walter  with  the 
kind  of  heartiness  that  is  merely  politeness.  He 
was  too  powerfully  moved  to  bring  into  view  any 
part  of  what  he  really  thought.  "Such  a  good 
talker — so  intelligent  and  well  informed." 

In  fact,  he  would  have  found  it  difficult  to  re 
call  even  the  substance  of  anything  she  had  said; 
and  if  he  had  recalled  it,  he  would  have  found 
difficulty  in  explaining  why  he  regarded  such 
usual  young  person  talk  as  either  intelligent  or 
well  informed.  But  he  was  in  love — in  love  in 
the  most  approved  romantic  way — love  at  first 

124 


ENID 


sight.  And  that  kind  of  love  must  be,  as  we 
all  know,  based  upon  sympathy  of  soul  and  intel 
lect,  with  no  touch  of  the  base  and  debasing 
physical.  No,  Walter  was  thinking  of  her  hair 
and  eyes  and  teeth  and  lips  and  long,  slim  neck 
and  restless,  nervous  body  only  as  one  thinks  of 
the  piano  when  one  is  listening  to  the  sonata. 

"If  I  had  money  enough  to  marry  and  settle 
down,"  continued  Joe,  "there's  the  lady  I'd 
ask." 

Walter  smothered  his  upflaring  hatred.  Said 
he: 

"Could  you  get  her?" 

"Oh,  I  suppose  so,"  replied  Joe  indifferently. 
"She's  got  to  marry  somebody,  you  know.  And 
no  doubt  we'd  fall  in  love  with  each  other  if  we 
went  at  each  other  that  way." 

"I  don't  believe  she'd  bother  with  you,"  said 
Walter  jocosely — with  an  ugly  laugh. 

"Well,  she'll  not  get  the  chance,"  replied  Joe. 
"She's  what  I  call  dangerous.  So  I  keep  away 
from  her  except  once  in  so  often.  That's  the 
way  not  to  get  messed  up  in  a  promise  you  can't 

125 


ENID 


fulfill.  Then,  too,  I'm  like  you;  I  don't  think 
much  of  marrying.  Of  course,  if  I  didn't  have 
a  home,  I'd  feel  differently.  And  so'd  you,  I 
guess." 

Home?  Marrying  for  a  home?  The  idea 
did  not  attract  Walter  Prescott.  He  was  not  a 
wanderer  far  from  home;  neither  was  home  a 
vague  and  gold-misted  reminiscence  of  the  re 
mote  past.  It  was  a  present  actuality — com 
fortable,  correct,  "Christian,"  but  monotonous, 
tedious,  dull;  a  good  place  to  sleep,  a  good 
enough  place  to  eat,  but  not  suggesting  any  posi 
tive  pleasure.  He  could  not  associate  the  idea 
home  and  the  idea  Enid  Holmes. 

Joe  Carmine  was  saying: 

"Ever  come  near  marrying  for  a  home?  / 
did — once.  Girl  in  a  town  near  here — I  sha'n't 
say  who.  She  was  one  of  those  sweet,  quiet  crea 
tures — made  you  think  of  firelight  in  winter — 
snowing  like  hell  outside,  everything  warm  and 
cosy  inside — dear  little  wife  waiting,  making 
everything  cheerful." 

Walter  nodded,  laughed. 
126 


ENID 


"I  fell  for  it — thought  I  simply  couldn't  let 
such  a  chance  go  by.  But  it  was  a  long  engage 
ment — and  I  got  a  little  tired — and  she  took  an 
other  fellow.  Say,  Prescott,  why  do  they  al 
ways  write  the  teary  things  about  his  being 
broken-hearted  over  the  girl  he  didn't  get?  For 
one  of  those  cases,  there's  a  million  of  the  man 
who  gets  a  grin  out  of  life  every  day  with  think 
ing  how  he  dodged  marrying  her — eh?" 

Prescott  nodded  knowingly  again. 

"That  girl  of  mine — you  ought  to  see  her 
home."  Carmine  laughed.  "She  didn't  know 
anything  more  about  home-making  than — than 
my  sister  or  yours.  The  women  used  to  be  home 
makers.  They  still  look  as  if  they  could — some 
times.  But  it's  only  a  look — a  kind  of  survival 
like  a  chicken's  wings  that  can't  be  flown  with 
any  more." 

Prescott's  thoughts  ran  on  about  Enid.  Cer 
tainly  there  was  nothing  of  the  sweet,  monoton 
ous,  dull  home-maker  about  her — no  reality  of 
it,  no  pretence  of  it.  She  was  a  girl  to  give  a 
fellow  emotions — thrills.  She  looked  interesting 

127 


ENID 


— exciting — mysterious     and     worth     exploring. 
She  appealed  to  the  sense  of  adventure. 

Life — the  life  of  conventional  business  and 
conventional  sociability — life  scrupulously  cor 
rect,  cut  and  dried — the  life  to  which  our  indi 
viduality-hating  social  system  condemns  us — it  is 
not  as  a  rule  accepted  by  youth  without  more  or 
less  violent  spasms  of  revolt.  It  even  rasps  the 
nerves  of  those  tamed  to  its  treadmill  so  that 
they  often  long  to  jump  the  harness  and  caper — 
and  occasionally  venture  to  yield.  Most  of  the 
vice  in  this  world  is  sired  by  poverty  and  dammed 
by  misery.  The  rest — or  nearly  all  of  it — origi-  i 
nates  in  this  revolt  of  individuality  against  the  i 
patterned  thing.  Walter  Prescott — a  fairly 
average  young  man  in  intelligence  and  imagina 
tion — gazed  with  longing  eyes  at  Enid  Holmes — 
why?  Because  she  conjured  in  him  with  her 
loose,  luxuriant  bronze  hair,  with  her  eager  eyes, 
with  her  wide,  passionate  mouth,  with  her  slim, 
intensely  alive  figure,  visions  of  delightful  experi 
ences,  of  sensations  intoxicating  to  the  nerves,  of 
excursions  from  quiet,  conventional  Lester  into 

128 


ENID 


the  realms  of  fancy  and  of  passion.  Where  and 
what  were  these  realms?  He  did  not  know;  but 
that  personality  of  Enid's  played  upon  his  im 
agination  as  the  music  of  the  Pied  Piper  upon 
the  imaginations  of  Hamelin's  children. 

He  saw  her  again  a  day  or  two  later.  She 
was  hurrying  along  through  the  light  snowstorm. 
There  was  fur  round  the  brim  of  her  little  hat, 
fur  round  her  neck  and  up  against  her  now 
flushed  cheeks.  The  long  wrap  had  the  lines  of 
her  figure;  there  were  a  few  snowflakes  in  her 
loosely  caught  hair.  And  the  big,  eager  eyes 
were  bright  and  the  wide  mouth  was  rosy.  He 
was  in  a  rush  to  get  to  the  bank  before  closing 
time ;  but  he  turned  and  joined  her. 

Such  a  commonplace  conversation — on  both 
sides.  They  laughed  a  great  deal  at  things  with 
no  laugh  in  them.  But  that  lack  was  unimpor 
tant;  there  was  laughter  a  plenty,  and  all  kinds 
of  emotion,  in  their  nerves.  He  was  thinking 
about  her,  every  thought  a  quiver.  She  was 
thinking  about  the  same  thing — herself.  In  love 
— of  this  kind — the  man  thinks,  and  shows  that 

129 


ENID 


he  thinks,  there  is  nothing  worth  thinking  about 
but  the  woman.  And  the  woman — is  it  not  natu 
ral  that  she  should  accept  his  view  of  things? 
Prescott  was  intent  upon  Enid;  Enid  upon  her 
self — upon  her  pose,  upon  the  impression  she 
was  making.  He  wanted  her;  she  wanted — not 
him,  but  him  to  want  her,  which  is  a  very  dif 
ferent  matter. 

"May  I  come  to  see  you  to-night ?"  asked  he, 
leaving  her  at  her  gate. 

She  looked  mysterious,  nervous,  suddenly  with 
drawn  into  the  depths  of  her  cryptic  self.  She 
was  debating  nothing  more  cryptic  than  whether 
it  would  be  wiser  to  put  off  the  pleasure  that  he 
might  value  it  the  more  or  to  yield  to  her  desire 
to  pass  an  evening  at  the  business  a  woman  finds 
most  profitable,  and,  therefore,  naturally,  most 
agreeable.  As  she  was  young  and  impatient  and 
eager,  desire  won. 

A  fleeting,  shy-bold,  altogether  fascinating 
look  from  the  big  eyes,  and  the  wide  mouth  said, 
"Yes — do.  There  are  so  many  things  I  want  to 
ask  you  about." 

130 


ENID 


As  soon  as  he  was  round  the  corner  he  set  off 
at  a  dead  run.  He  reached  the  bank  barely  in 
time  to  make  the  daily  deposit.  As  he  was  not 
without  his  vein  of  prudence,  this  infatuation 
for  Enid  did  not  possess  him  undisputedly.  He 
reminded  himself  that  he  was  only  twenty-four, 
that  the  world  was  as  yet  a  wholly  unexplored 
place,  that  it  contained  many  wonders,  including 
many  wonderful  women. 

"There's  nothing  in  marriage,  anyhow,"  re 
flected  he.  "And  I'd  be  a  damn  fool  to  settle 
down — tie  myself  to  a  woman — begin  to  raise  a 
family — when  I'm  not  grown  up.  That  little  girl 
has  turned  my  head.  I  must  be  careful,  or  I'll 
propose  to  her  the  first  chance  I  get.  And  if  I'm 
once  tangled  in,  I'll  have  hard  work  escaping, 
if  I  should  want  to  escape." 

Enid,  at  home  and  in  her  own  room,  was  look 
ing  at  herself  in  the  glass.  She  was  in  a  state  of 
exalted  excitement.  About  him,  she  thought;  in 
fact,  about  herself  and  her  prospects  of  a  tri 
umph.  "You  must  make  yourself  as  fascinating 
as  you  can,"  she  said  to  herself.  "You  must  try 


ENID 


to  be  worthy  of  him."  She  had  idealized  him 
into  a  figure  worthy  of  a  novel,  worthy  of  a 
maiden  with  a  mysterious  soul.  She  had  never 
looked  at  him,  the  stove  Manufacturer  of  Lester, 
Pa.  She  could  not  have  accurately  described  him. 
But  that  would  have  been  quite  unnecessary.  A 
man  generally  regarded  as  worth  while  was  ad 
miring  her,  was  in  the  way  to  fall  at  her  feet. 
The  important  thing  was  not  the  man,  but  his 
admiration,  his  impending  adoration.  While  he 
was  burning  with  the  desire  to  possess,  she  was 
aglow  with  the  desire  to  be  possessed — or,  was 
it  rather  the  longing  to  be  made  to  see  and  hear 
and  feel  how  desirable  she  was? 

All  human  beings,  the  self-complacent  intel-  \ 
lectual  or  spiritual  classes  hardly  less  than  the 
others  not  so  fortunately  endowed  in  the  matter 
of  vocabulary  to  aid  them  in  self-deception  and 
self-glorification,  are  necessarily  dominated  by 
the  physical.  So  long  as  the  body  exists,  so  long 
as  it  is  able  to  imprison  the  soul  in  a  world  of 
material  things,  just  so  long  will  this  continue  to 
be  so  true.  Because  they  have  little  else  to  think 

132 


ENID 


about  but  themselves  and  the  immediate  and 
pressing  cravings  of  their  material  natures, 
women  are  more  material  than  men.  And  this 
is  aggravated  by  the  fact  that  their  physical 
charms  are  their  chief  asset  in  the  market  to 
which  they  all  feel  that  they  must  go.  So,  if 
the  spiritual  side  of  Enid's  nature  is  not  here 
dwelt  upon  so  much  as  some  historians  would 
dwell  upon  it,  that  is  simply  because  we  are  try 
ing  to  get  acquainted  with  her — leaving  it  to 
young  Mr.  Prescott  to  study  and  enrapture  over 
her  soul  and  its  elegantly  broidered  garment  of 
pose. 

That  evening  Enid,  in  one  of  her  simplest 
dresses  and  with  hair  like  a  nebulous,  shimmering 
aureole  about  her  slim,  eager  little  face,  sat  at 
the  piano  and  sang  a  sad,  dreamy  French  song 
in  a  low,  tender  voice.  The  soft  light  of  a  shaded 
lamp  flung  its  gentle  glory  upon  her.  Walter 
Prescott  was  so  bewitched  that  he  stood  behind 
her  and  afar  off,  his  clenched  fists  deep  in  his 
trousers'  pockets  and  his  strong,  tallish  body  in 
an  attitude  of  tense  resistance.  But  when  she 

133 


ENID 


turned  slowly  round  on  the  piano  stool  and  fixed 
the  big  eyes  upon  him,  her  mouth  tremulous  with 
a  gentle,  pensive  smile — when  she  thus  climaxed 
her  play  upon  the  young  man's  emotions,  he 
wilted  into  a  big  chair  and  made  a  last  stand  for 
liberty  by  compressing  his  lips.  The  words 
might  surge  up  to  that  barrier;  but  pass  they 
should  not. 

"I  wish  I  knew  French,"  said  she.  "You  do, 
of  course?" 

"The  kind  they  speak  at  Yale,"  replied  he. 
"Pretty  bum." 

They  talked  along  in  this  strain.  To  record 
it  would  be  about  as  germane  to  what  was  actu 
ally  occurring  in  that  room  as — well,  as  to  record 
any  conversation  of  any  similarly  placed  couple 
of  youngsters  circling  about  the  business  for 
which  nature  has  put  us  upon  this  earth.  Pres 
ently  she  wanted  him  to  translate  the  words  of  a 
song.  That  brought  him  to  the  piano,  to  stand 
beside  her,  to  bend  over  and  forward  toward 
the  music  rest.  His  fists  were  clenched  in  his 
trousers1  pockets.  As  he  wrestled  with  the 

134 


ENID 


French  something  wrestled  with  the  tense  arm 
and  fingers  nearest  her.  His  conquest  of  the 
French  was  not  notable;  but  the  something  did 
better  with  the  arm.  For  the  arm  quivered, 
moved,  advanced  hesitatingly;  the  fingers  touched 
her  shoulder;  the  arm  was  resting  lightly  across 
her  back.  She  looked  up  at  him — the  slim,  wist 
ful  face,  the  eager  eyes,  the  lips  slightly  ajar. 
He  kissed  her. 

It  was  more  maddening  than  he  had  fancied — 
giddy  though  his  fancyings  had  been.  "You  are 
a  wonder,  Enid,"  he  said — an  unfair  account  of 
the  impression  he  was  making,  for  that  impres 
sion  depended  not  at  all  on  words.  "I'm  as 
cracked  as  an  old  kettle  about  you." 

She  laughed — a  low,  gentle,  passion-charged, 
electrifying  laugh.  Women  of  good  taste  rarely 
make  the  coarse  male's  blunder  of  speech  at  such 
times.  They  have  too  strong  a  sense  of  the  har 
monious.  Also,  luckily  for  the  male,  they  do  not 
listen,  either;  they  feel. 

"You  mustn't,"  she  said.  "We've  seen  each 
other  only  twice." 

135 


ENID 


"Once  was  enough  for  me/'  declared  he,  kiss 
ing  her  again. 

She  thrilled!  Then  she  had  not  been  mistaken 
in  her  guess  at  the  meaning  of  his  agitations  and 
incoherencies  when  he  called  with  Joe  Carmine. 
She  was  loved! — at  first  sight! — by  a  man  of 
the  sort  a  girl  could  be  in  every  way  proud  of — a 
man  desirable  and  satisfying  both  to  convention 
ality  and  to  romance.  Her  great  eyes  fell  to 
dreaming.  Said  she — and  how  enchanting,  how 
mysterious  she  looked! 

"I  don't  understand  myself.  I — I've  always 
disliked  being  touched." 

What  womanly  delicacy!  Yes,  indeed — he 
knew,  without  her  telling  him,  that  those  super- 
sensitive  nerves — was  there  anything  to  her  but 
nerves? — just  nerves,  to  quiver,  to  utter  the  most 
exquisite  music  at  his  touch — yes,  those  nerves 
would  shrink  and  shudder  at  any  contact  not  the 
right  one.  And,  of  course,  there  never  had  been, 
never  could  be,  a  "right  one"  save  only  his.  Said 
he: 

"You  beautiful  darling." 
136 


ENID 


"Oh,  no,"  corrected  she,  "I'm  not  beautiful. 
Perhaps  a  little  different  looking — thin — and 
with  a  big  mouth " 

He  shivered  with  rapture  as  she  thus  adroitly 
reminded  him  of  that  rare  bundle  of  nerves,  her 
body,  and  of  those  ecstasy-charged  lips.  "You 
are  like  something  out  of  a  Swinburne  or  Rossetti 
poem,"  cried  he. 

Quite  a  flight  into  the  empyrean  of  culture  for 
the  young  stove  manufacturer.  It  giddied  her, 
made  her  laugh  with  happiness.  She  had  tried 
hard  to  be  exactly  that  Swinburne-Rossetti  girl. 
She  had  succeeded! 

"What  a  wonderful  man  you  are,"  said  she 
with  that  depth  of  conviction  we  sound  only  for 
those  who  have  told  us  the  thing  about  ourselves 
we  most  wish  to  hear.  "How  much  you  know, 
and  how  well  you  say  it." 

He  lingered  until  all  hours,  departed  in  a 
fever,  and  leaving  her  in  a  fever.  They  were 
to  see  each  other  the  following  afternoon  when 
he  should  leave  the  office  a  little  early  for  the 
trip  to  the  bank. 

137 


ENID 


Many  and  varied  are  the  trifling  harmless  de 
ceptions  practiced  by  us  human  beings  in  our  ef 
fort  to  live  up  to  our  ideals.  Each  of  us  feels 
that  he  is  not  really  deceiving,  but  is  merely  an 
ticipating  an  excellence  that  will  surely  be  ours 
soon.  It  is  foolish  and  unjust  to  condemn — in 
others — these  deceptions,  to  blow  them  up  into 
vast  moral  turpitudes.  It  is  no  evidence  of  Enid 
Holmes's  wickedness  that,  in  striving  to  present 
her  pose  to  young  Prescott  in  perfection,  she 
committed  a  slight  breach  of  strict  veracity.  In 
Lester,  among  the  young  people,  in  moments  of 
enthusiasm  natural  to  lively  youth,  it  was  almost 
the  matter  of  course  that  there  should  be  a  little 
hand-holding,  a  little  "spooning"  even.  But  such 
doings  did  not  fit  in  with  a  pose  of  mystery,  aloof 
ness  and  extreme  delicateness  of  nervous  sensibil 
ity.  Thus  it  was  not  only  natural,  it  was  neces 
sary  that  Enid  should  "forget"  certain  conces 
sions  to  the  unavowed  code  of  Lester  youth. 
Those  concessions  had  in  fact  been  rare  and  mild. 
Enid  was  too  electric — felt  too  keenly,  caused 
men  to  feel  too  keenly — to  dare  to  adventure 

138 


ENID 


far  or  frequently.  It  seemed  to  her  that  in  com 
parison  with  the  avowed  record  of  so  many  of 
the  girls  her  own  record  was  indeed  the  blank 
she  had  described  to  credulous  Walter  Prescott. 

And  when  she  suffered  Walter  to  put  his  arm 
round  her  and  to  kiss  her,  it  had  meant  a  great 
deal  to  her — had  meant  what  no  other  man's 
touch  or  kiss  had  ever  meant.  This,  not  so  much 
because  it  was  different  in  itself  as  because  she 
wished  it  to  be  different.  With  other  men  she 
had  been  practicing,  amusing  herself,  preventing 
an  evening's  call  from  being  a  dismal  stretch  of 
silences  interrupted  by  common-place  talk,  or  giv 
ing  the  convincing  touch  of  make-believe  romance 
to  a  moonlight  stroll  between  dances.  With  Wal 
ter  she  was  in  earnest,  and  she  wished  him  to  be 
in  earnest. 

But — was  he?  Again  and  again  the  young 
men  and  the  young  women  indulged  in  a  little 
"nestling,"  as  it  was  called,  with  no  notion  of 
seriousness  on  either  side.  True,  in  the  novels 
no  nice  girl  "nestled"  ever  so  little  except  seri 
ously,  and  no  man  ever  tried  to  induce  a  nice 

139 


ENID 


girl  to  "nestle"  unless  he  was  in  deadly,  license- 
and-ring  earnest — or  was  a  black-hearted  as  well 
as  black-mustached  scoundrel.  But  then  the  nov 
els  contained  no  real  people,  and  the  novelists 
knew  nothing  about  life  as  it  was  lived — at  least 
in  Lester,  Pa.  So — was  he  in  earnest,  or  was  he 
merely  trying  to  be  agreeable  as  a  caller? 

No  wonder  Enid  Holmes  went  up  to  bed  in  a 
fever  higher  than  the  one  Walter  Prescott  walked 
off  before  he  returned  home.  She  made  some 
excellent  resolutions.  They  bore  fruit  within  a 
week.  When  in  the  daily  and  even  twice  daily 
meetings  he  tried  to  touch  her,  she  drew  away. 
Drawing  away  fitted  in  beautifully  with  her  pose. 
And  she  could  scare  herself  with  thought  that 
drove  the  color  from  her  cheeks  and  made  them 
harmonize  with  her  wide,  startled  eyes.  If  he 
was  misled  into  fancying  these  interesting  effects 
were  due  wholly  to  the  power  of  his  touch,  to 
the  astonishing  and  intoxicating  sympathy  be 
tween  this  girl's  wondrous  soul  and  his — if  he  was 
thus  misled,  was  it  her  fault?  Was  it — honestly 
— evidence  of  deep-dyed  duplicity  in  her  charac- 

140 


ENID 


ter?  Let  him  or  her  that  is  without  sin  cast  the 
first  stone. 

A  week  of  this  starvation,  of  this  evidence  of 
her  delicacy  and  delirious  infatuation  with  him, 
and  Walter  "talked  ring."  From  the  first  time 
he  called  alone,  he  had  intended  to  "talk  ring." 
Had  she  been  less  abstinent — and  not  too  free — 
he  would  as  surely  have  "talked  ring."  Possibly 
he  might  have  talked  it  somewhat  sooner.  But 
she  believed  that  her  restraint  was  the  cause — 
and  she  kept  on  at  the  lucky  policy  after  they 
were  formally  engaged.  Also,  her  delicacy  had 
now  become  real — or,  she  believed  it  had,  and 
that  comes  to  the  same  thing.  A  pose,  if  it  is 
a  genuine  outgrowth  of  a  personality,  soon  ceases 
to  be  pretense,  ceases  to  be  a  detached  thing,  and 
grows  to  one  like  a  true  skin.  Enid's  pose  was 
of  that  kind.  It  was  growing  to  her,  as  were 
all  the  graftings  into  it  she  made  from  time  to 
time  as  she  understood  it  better  and  better. 

Walter  announced  his  engagement  to  his  father 
and  mother,  together  at  the  breakfast  table  the 
morning  after  it  was  accomplished.  Said  he, 

141 


ENID 


looking  at  his  father,  then  at  his  mother,  then 
straight  ahead  at  the  mahogany  sideboard  laden 
with  cut  glass  and  showy  china : 

"Enid  Holmes  and  I — we've  become  engaged." 

A  solemn  pause. 

He  looked  at  his  mother,  and  said:  "I  know 
you'll  like  her,  mamma."  He  looked  at  his 
father,  and  said:  "I  know  you'll  be  pleased,  as 
you're  always  urging  me  to  marry." 

His  father — stocky,  bewhiskered,  practical  and 
prosperous — stretched  out  his  hand.  "Nice  girl," 
said  he.  "Looks  like  a  woman.  I  mean,  she  isn't 
big  and  loud,  like  so  many  nowadays.  You're 
doing  well,  young  man.  You  can't  settle  too  soon 
to  suit  me." 

Walter  shook  hands  with  his  father,  then 
waited  expectantly  upon  his  mother.  She  was  a 
robust,  rather  elderly  woman,  with  a  sensible, 
pleasant  face.  She  had  all  the  education  neces 
sary  for  her  part  in  life  as  she  conceived  it.  She 
and  her  husband  got  on  placidly,  like  two  friends 
who  were  used  to  each  other,  who  did  not  know 
each  other  very  well,  but  as  well  as  they  cared  to 

142 


ENID 


know  each  other.  She  was  in  no  hurry  to  speak. 
She  poured  herself  a  second  cup  of  coffee  from 
the  old-fashioned  urn  before  her,  put  cream  and 
sugar  in  it,  stirred  it,  tasted  it. 

"Well,  mamma  ?"  said  Walter. 

"I  think  you're  too  young  to  marry,"  said  she. 

"Nonsense,  ma,"  said  the  elder  Prescott 
brusquely.  "Haven't  I  told  you  Walter  would 
be  better  off  married?" 

"Yes,"  replied  she,  after  another  deliberate 
sip  of  coffee.  "But  I  think  he's  too  young  to 
commit  himself."  She  had  a  placid  way  of  stand 
ing  by  her  opinions,  without  giving  any  reason, 
that  was  highly  exasperating  to  her  impetuous 
husband  and  son. 

"You  don't  understand  men,"  retorted  her 
husband.  He  knew  considerably  more  than  did 
"ma"  about  their  Walt's  occasional  "outbreaks"; 
and  he  had  the  elderly  fear  of  their  menace  to 
health  and  orderly  business  habits.  And  to  mor 
als — of  course,  morals;  that  should  never  be 
overlooked.  "If  you  understood  men,  you 
wouldn't  talk  that  way." 

143 


ENID 


"I  don't  believe  in  short  engagements  or  early 
marriages/'  said  Mrs.  Prescott.  "Anyhow,  Walt, 
you're  not  going  to  marry  soon?" 

"As  soon  as  she'll  do  it,"  replied  Walt. 

"Then  that  means  mighty  quick,"  said  his 
mother.  Not  by  way  of  flinging  at  Enid;  simply 
a  philosophic  conclusion,  drawn  from  her  experi 
ence  of  life — and  of  women. 

"You  like  her — don't  you,  mamma?"  urged 
Walter. 

"So. far  as  I've  seen,"  replied  Mrs.  Prescott. 

"I  wouldn't  want  to  marry  a  woman  you 
weren't  fond  of." 

"Your  ma  don't  think  any  woman's  good 
enough  for  her  son,"  said  Pa  Prescott,  with  hu 
morous  intent. 

"Oh,  you  can't  tell  anything  much  about  girls," 
said  Mrs.  Prescott.  "I  reckon  Walt  stands  about 
as  good  chance  with  one  as  with  another.  You 
never  can  tell  what  a  woman  is  until  she's  mar 
ried,  no  more'n  you  can  tell  what  kind  of  a  kernel 
there  is  in  the  nut  before  the  shell's  broken." 

"My  notion  is,"  observed  Pa  Prescott,  "that 
144 


ENID 


most  any  good  girl'll  do.  The  thing  is  to  get 
the  man  settled  and  steadied  with  some  responsi 
bility." 

He  had  finished  his  breakfast.  Instead  of  urg 
ing  Walter  to  hurry  and  go  to  the  office  with  him, 
he  went  alone.  The  occasion  was  extraordinary; 
the  boy  would  want  to  talk  things  over  with  his 
mother.  As  soon  as  he  was  gone,  the  son — in  a 
tone  of  ease,  intimacy,  and  affection  he  never 
took  when  his  father  was  about — said: 

"You're  not  going  to  be  against  me  in  this, 
are  you — ma?" 

"Lord,  no,"  replied  his  mother.  "I  reckon  the 
girl's  all  right.  She  don't  amount  to  much,  to 
look  at — nothing  but  skin  and  bone,  and  a  lot 
of  wavy  hair.  But  I  suppose  she'll  fatten  out. 
I  was  almost  as  little  as  her  when  your  pa  mar 
ried  me." 

Walter  did  not  show  any  signs  of  ecstatic  en 
thusiasm  at  the  prospect  of  a  fattened  wife.  The 
cold  douche  of  his  mother's  obvious  common 
sense  daunted  and  depressed  him. 

"Though,"  his  mother  went  on,  "I  don't 
145 


ENID 


reckon  she'll  ever  be  quite  as  big  as  her  mother. 
She  sits  all  day,  poring  over  those  novels.  If  / 
sat  like  that,  I'd  be  so  big  I  couldn't  get  up." 

"Why  don't  you  like  her,  mother?"  demanded 
Walter,  irritated.  "Do  speak  straight  out." 

"I've  got  nothing  against  her,"  protested  his 
mother.  "You  can't  expect  everybody  to  think 
her  as  wonderful  as  you  do — now.  All  I'm  say 
ing  is,  don't  do  things  in  a  hurry." 

"But  you  said  yourself  that  there  was  no  tell 
ing  about  a  girl  until  she  was  married.  You 
wouldn't  have  me  let  somebody  else  marry  her 
and  wait  till  she  was  a  widow?" 

"There's   a   lot   to  be   said  for  widows,"   re 
joined  Mrs.  Prescott.     "A  man  that  marries  a 
widow  knows  what  he's  getting.     When  a  man  ; 
marries  a  girl,  the  only  thing  he  can  be  sure  of  is 
that  he  ain't  getting  what  he  thinks  he  is." 

They  were  both  in  a  good  humor  now.  Wal 
ter  put  his  arm  round  her  and  kissed  her.  Said 
he: 

"Do  go  to  see  her,  mommy,  and  be  nice  to 
her." 

146 


ENID 


"Of  course  I  will,"  said  his  mother.  "I'll  like 
her  well  enough."  She  laughed  shrewdly. 
"She'll  see  to  that." 

And  Enid  did.  She  did  no  posing  with  the  old 
lady  she  wished  to  win — "dear  Walter's  darling 
of  a  mother,"  as  she  called  her  to  herself — quite 
sincerely.  She  was  simple  and  sweet  and  frankly 
anxious  to  please — was  not  at  all  "weird  and 
mysterious,"  no  more  so  than  one  of  Maeter 
linck's  or  Swinburne's  ladies  would  be  in  the  uses 
of  everyday  life,  with  no  credulous  males  to  mys 
tify  and  entrap.  She  let  Mrs.  Prescott  discover 
— quite  by  chance — that  the  Holmes's  housekeep 
ing  was  done  by  her,  and  was  done  well.  The 
only  positive  defect  Mrs.  Prescott  was  able  to 
discover  was  that  Enid  had  the  mania  for  having 
her  photograph  made,  in  all  sorts  of  queer,  pen 
sive,  soulful,  face-feeling,  eye-twisting  poses. 
Very  lovely  photographs — not  too  conspicuously 
displayed.  But  Mrs.  Prescott  strongly  disliked 
this  form  of  vanity,  chiefly  because  it  was  so 
wastefully  expensive.  Still,  all  the  girls  were 
mad  about  having  their  pictures  taken.  Enid 

147 


ENID 

was  merely  falling  in  with  the  general  fad.  Mrs. 
Prescott  felt  that  it  would  be  harsh  to  condemn 
her  utterly.  But  misgivings  she  could  not  help 
having. 

Samuel  Prescott  was  all  for  putting  his  son's 
marriage  through.  "Have  die  wedding  next 
month,"  said  he.  "I'll  not  take  your  mother  and 
go  abroad  until  after  you  come  back  from  your 
wedding  trip.9' 

And  Prescott  had  his  way,  it  being  every 
body's  way  except  Mrs.  Prescott's — and  she  did 
not  venture  to  oppose  her  husband  strongly.  It 
was  settled  that  the  wedding  should  be  in  early 
March,  with  a  brief  trip  South  or  to  Bermuda. 

Immediately  it  was  all  arranged,  Enid  became 
radiant,  confident,  more  mysteriously  fascinating 

and  elusive  than  ever.  And  Walter He 

was  fascinated,  infatuated,  eager.  And  yet 

He  was  signed,  sealed  and  delivered  over — was 
as  good  as  married — was  assailed  by  an  army  of 
doubts  and  fears.  When  he  was  with  the  girl  of 
his  choice,  the  girl  whose  spirituality  was  so  mys 
terious  and  awe-inspiring,  die  girl  who  sur- 

148 


ENID 

charged  him  with  such  giddying  emotions — when 
he  was  with  her,  he  had  no  fears  and  no  doubts, 
only  eagerness.  But  no  sooner  was  he  alone  than 
he  began  to  chill  and  to  shrink.  The  sensible- 
sounding  things  his  mother  had  said,  the  sensible 
things  he  himself  had  said  and  thought,  "before 
I  went  crazy  over  her,"  the  awful  warnings 
about  unhappy  marriage  and  divorce  he  was 
hearing  and  reading — all  these  urged  on  their 
terrors  to  attack  him. 

<rWhat  do  she  and  I  know  about  each  other?" 
the  sensible  young  stove  manufacturer  asked 
himself.  "What  sort  of  mfe  will  she  make? 
What  sort  of  wife  do  I  want?  Do  I  really  want 
any  wife  at  all?  What's  the  matter  with  me, 
anyhow,  getting  cold  feet  when  it's  too  late  to 
sidestep? — and,  damn  it,  do  I  want  to  sidestep? 
I  don't  want  to  be  married,  but  I  do  want  her. 
What's  a  fellow  to  do?" 

What,  indeed?  Obviously  nothing  but  go  on. 
It  was  no  indication  of  unusual  sensitiveness  in 
Enid  Holmes  that  she  felt  his  nervousness. 
"Engaged  man's  panic"  is  as  familiar  a  phe- 

149 


ENID 


nomenon  as  the  squawking  of  a  captured  chicken 
or  the  flopping  of  a  hooked  fish.  And  woman 
instinctively  anticipates  it,  feels  it  before  it  actu 
ally  begins,  deals  with  it  according  to  her  abili 
ties.  No  woman  ever  feels  that  this  is  a  slur 
upon  her;  she  knows  that  it  does  not  involve  her, 
but  is  only  the  nervousness  of  the  free  at  the 
touch  of  the  matrimonial  bridle — and  that  bridle, 
as  she  knows  and  as  he  knows,  is  not  in  her 
hands,  but  in  the  hands  of  society.  Even  the  man 
marrying  for  a  home,  even  the  man  marrying  for 
children  or  for  money,  even  the  man  marrying 
because  only  by  marriage  can  he  hope  to  get 
some  one  to  associate  with  him,  bear  with  him, 
listen  to  him,  on  terms  of  his  own  arranging — 
even  these  men  feel  the  nervousness  as  the  bridle 
drops  over  their  heads  and  the  bit  presses  their 
quivering  lips.  She  sympathized  with  him  pres 
ently.  For  his  nervousness  affected  her,  made 
her  feel  the  longing  to  be  free.  If  she  had  ever 
had  freedom,  such  as  he  had,  would  not  she  have 
hated  to  give  it  up?  .  .  .  "Would  I  have 
given  it  up?"  As  she  grew  more  nervous  about 

150 


ENID 


him,  about  the  whole  business,  her  secret  heart 
answered  that  question  with  an  emphatic  no. 
And  she  began  to  feel — not  exactly  contempt  for 
him,  but  a  certain  vague  kind  of  superiority  to 
him  who  was  doing  this  weak  thing.  She  loved 
him — yes.  She  looked  up  to  him— —yes.  How 
can  one  love  and  look  up,  and  at  the  same  time 
dislike  and  look  down?  Nobody  knows;  all  we 
know  is  that  human  nature  which  is  capable  of 
all  inconsistencies  is  capable  of  this.  And  she 
was  just  a  little  afraid  that  he,  who  had  got  her 
into  the  habit  of  loving  him  and  counting  on  him, 
would  fail  her — 

In  one  of  their  spasms  of  reaction  from  these 
moods  of  panic,  she  said,  with  absolute  sincerity : 

"What  an  ideal  love  ours  has  been!  How 
perfectly  we  sympathize — and  understand — and 
trust!" 

"Perfectly!"  echoed  he,  as  serious  as  she.  "I 
feel  as  if  we  had  known  and  loved  always.  I 
wish  to  God,  Enid,  it  was  all  over  and  our  hap 
piness  was  secure.  Let's  get  married  at  once. 
This  suspense  is  upsetting  me  horribly." 


ENID 


"Me,  too,"  said  she.  His  suggestion  tempted 
her  for  a  moment.  But  only  for  a  moment.  And 
soon  he,  too,  saw  how  absurd  and  unconventional 
and  scandal-making  such  a  freak  would  be. 

"Thank  Heaven,  it's  only  two  weeks  away," 
cried  he. 

"They'll  soon  pass,"  said  she,  hopefully. 

But  such  days  do  not  pass  soon.  A  dozen 
times  in  those  two  weeks  of  strain  they  almost 
quarreled.  Once  they  broke  the  engagement, 
and  while  it  was  he  who  humbled  himself  and 
made  it  up,  he  rather  felt  that  he  was  doing  it 
out  of  consideration  for  her — that,  left  to  choose 
freely  for  himself,  he  would — no,  not  exactly 
drop  the  whole  business,  but  put  it  off,  away  off. 

"If  divorce  wasn't  possible,  would  a  sane  man 
ever  marry?"  he  said  to  himself.  Then,  "Good 
Lord,  what  a  thought  for  a  man  madly  in  love 
and  about  to  be  married!" 

As  for  her Her  mother  said  to  her  one 

day: 

"How  lovely  your  happiness  has  made  you! 
How  happy  you  are!" 

152 


ENID 


uYes — I  suppose  I'm  happy,"  replied  Enid. 

"But Mama,  if  women  didn't  simply  have 

to  marry,  wouldn't  they  act  very  differently? 
.  .  .  Is  that  a  dreadful  thought?" 

"You  don't  have  to  marry,  darling,"  said  her 
mother. 

"I'm  not  exactly  what  you'd  call  crazy  about 
being  an  old  maid,"  replied  the  girl. 

"Don't  you  love  Walter?" 

"Indeed  I  do!"  cried  she.     "But " 

"But— what?" 

"I  don't  know,"  replied  she  vaguely. 

"I  should  think  you  didn't!"  exclaimed  her 
mother. 


153 


II 

MARRIAGE 

ENID  HOLMES  was  within  a  few  months 
of    twenty    when    she  married  Walter 
Prescott,  son  of  the  rich  stove  manufac 
turer — rich  for  Lester,  Pa.,  where  a  very  modest 
sum  indeed  is  an  ample  competence.     Two  years 
of  married  life  passed  without  event  of  apparent 
importance.     Then,  within  three  winter  months, 
one  misfortune  crashed  in  upon  another  until  she 
felt  that  her  life  was  in  ruins. 

First,  her  mother  died.  A  supportable  calam 
ity  in  itself,  as  Mrs.  Holmes  had  only  a  perfunc 
tory  affection  to  spare  from  herself  even  for  her 
only  child.  It  is  a  wise  provision  of  nature  to 
mitigate  grief  and  to  save  the  world  from  being 
a  house  of  inconsolable  grief,  that  all  human  be 
ings  grow  rapidly  more  selfish — unashamedly 
and  aggressively  selfish — as  they  grow  older, 

154 


ENID 


and,  so,  as  rapidly  decrease  in  charm.  Enid's 
mourning  was  made  acute  by  the  discovery  that 
her  mother,  instead  of  leaving  her  the  small  but 
secure  independence  of  sixteen  hundred  a  year 
she  had  always  counted  upon,  had  wasted  the 
principal  in  foolish  speculation  and  had  left  only 
five  or  six  hundred  dollars  over  and  above  the 
amount  necessary  to  give  her  the  kind  of  fu 
neral  Lester  demanded  of  people  of  station. 

Next,  she  discovered  that  she  no  longer  loved 
her  husband.  In  fact,  after  searching  examina 
tion  of  her  heart,  she  rather  thought  that  she 
never  had  loved  him,  that  she  had  probably  mar 
ried  for  the  same  reasons  as  those  moving  most 
of  the  Lester  girls  into  matrimony — because  a 
man  who  was  a  good  catch  had  asked  her;  be 
cause  his  ardent  courting  had  flattered  her;  be 
cause  she  was  at  the  age  when  wily  nature  fills 
young  minds  with  gorgeous  and  tantalizing  im 
aginings;  because  she  did  not  wish  to  be  an  old 
maid  or  to  have  to  take  some  poor  scrub  of  a 
left-over.  The  girls  of  Lester  were  born  into  an 
evil  day.  The  golden  age — when  the  men  out- 

155 


ENID 


numbered  the  women  and  woman  was  at  a 
premium,  was  an  object  of  adoration  and  could 
choose  among  several — the  golden  age  had 
passed.  There  were  more  girls  than  marriage 
able  men,  the  men  were  cocky  and  critical,  talked 
about  getting  their  money's  worth,  compared  the 
charms  of  different  girls  on  a  basis  of  lasting 
quality,  showed  scant  reverence  for  womanhood 
in  the  old,  beautiful,  sentimental  sense.  Evil 
days,  indeed.  So,  Enid  had  made  haste  to  fancy 
herself  in  love — for,  of  course,  she,  a  pure,  high- 
minded  woman  could  not  marry  unless  she  was 
in  love.  She  now  realized  that  she  had  deluded 
herself.  Was  there  any  such  thing  as  love?  Yes, 
there  must  be.  But  it  was  not  any  feeling  she 
ever  had  had  or  ever  could  have  for  so  ordinary 
a  person  as  Walter  Prescott. 

Finally,  a  third  and  crowning  calamity. 

As  soon  as  she  discovered  that  she  did  not 
love  her  husband,  she  was  seized  of  a  series  of 
spasms  of  cruel  moral  struggle.  What  was  it 
her  duty  to  do?  Should  she  tell  him  and  leave 
him?  And  if  she  left,  where  go,  when  she  had 


_ ENID 

no  money  and  no  relatives  able  to  give  her  any 
of  the  comforts  a  refined  and  delicate  nature  such 
as  hers  must  have?  Should  she  tell  him,  and 
stay  on,  "a  wife  in  name  only"?  Would  he  let 
her  stay  on?  Would  it  not  be  kinder  to  him  to 
hide  her  horrid  secret  deep  in  her  bosom  and 
as  well  as  she  could — no  doubt  well  enough  to 
deceive  as  coarse  a  nature  as  his — simulate  a  love 
she  did  not  feel? 

It  was  a  dreadful,  delightful  experience.  She 
felt  herself  a  true  heroine  of  romance  at  last. 
The  experience  would  have  been  altogether  de 
lightful  and  dreadful  only  in  a  nice,  comfortable 
theatrical  way,  but  for  the  fact  that  she  longed 
to  love.  She  looked  at  herself  in  the  glass — 
young,  with  a  delicate,  slender,  eager  face,  with 
a  narrow,  slender,  nervous  body  that  was,  like 
her  face,  an  expression  of  a  restless,  perfervid 
nature.  She  looked  at  her  large  eyes,  gazing  so 
mysteriously  from  under  that  careless  fascinating 
disarray  of  bronze-colored  hair,  looked  at  her 
sensitive  little  nose,  at  her  wide,  passionate 
mouth.  She  looked  at  these  charms  that  seemed 

157 


ENID 


to  sum  up  into  a  personality  of  mystery  and  fire. 
And  she  pitied  herself.  Only  twenty-two,  and 
all  this  bewitching  allure  wasted  upon  one  with 
the  soul  of  a  stove-maker.  Only  twenty-two,  and 
the  long,  long  years  stretching  away  emptily.  She 
saw  her  delicious  charms  "fading  as  the  years 
passed,  saw  her  exquisite  soul  withering  and  pal 
ing  like  a  flower  unvisited  of  rain  and  sun.  And 
she  wept. 

She  spent  a  great  deal  of  time  in  these  tears  of 
self-pity  that  so  freely  flow  from  feminine  eyes 
in  these  evil  days  of  womanhood  unappreciated, 
of  womanly  culture  scoffed  at,  of  womanly  deli 
cacy  derided  as  mere  laziness  and  selfishness. 
She  simply  could  not  make  up  her  mind  to  obey 
the  mandate  of  her  higher  nature  and  tell  him. 
It  would  be  such  a  cruelty  to  him,  who  loved  her 
after  his  fashion,  and,  in  his  dull  stupidity  of 
the  absorbed  commercial  person,  had  not  a  sus 
picion  of  what  her  finer  nature  was  feeling.  Also, 
she  had  no  money,  and  he  was  anything  but  gen 
erous  about  money;  suppose  he  should  let  her 
go  ?  Go ! — where  ?  No,  she  must  be  kind  to  him, 


ENID 


must  spare  him,  must  let  him  wallow  on  in  his 
coarse  content;  she  must  hide  her  sorrow. 

But  this  noble  —  and  prudent  —  resolution 
yielded  to  a  fit  of  temper. 

For  perhaps  the  hundredth  time  she  was  try 
ing  to  induce  him  to  buy  an  automobile.  This  re 
fusal  to  keep  anything  to  drive  in  was  one  of 
the  scores  of  indignities  he  had  put  upon  her,  in 
being  a  miser  and  making  her  a  miser's  wife.  It 
was  too  ridiculous,  when  his  father  was  so  well 
off  and  there  were  only  the  two  children,  Walter 
and  Molly,  and  when  Walter  had  a  partner 
ship  in  the  factory  and  got  in  dividends  and 
salary  about  twelve  thousand  a  year.  And  they 
living  quietly  in  a  cottage,  hardly  better  than 
the  one  she  and  her  mother  had  lived  in  on 
sixteen  hundred  a  year.  And  no  clothes  to 
speak  of,  no  entertaining,  nothing  to  drive  in. 
How  the  pitying  remarks  of  her  friends  galled 
her! 

She  felt  that  they  simply  must  have  the  auto 
mobile.  She  asked  him  for  it  directly,  indirectly. 
She  tried  wheedling;  she  tried  anger;  she  tried 

159 


ENID 


shamming.  Just  now  she  was  trying  shamming — 
with  not  the  least  success. 

Said  Walter: 

"What  do  we  care?  Everybody  despises  chose 
people  who  are  skimping  at  home  and  mortgag 
ing  and  dodging  their  debts  to  have  an  auto. 
But  even  if  they  were  respected,  and  we  were 
despised,  still  what  of  it?  Just  be  patient, 
Enid,  and  in  a  few  years  we  can  have  every 
thing  we  want — securely,  for  the  rest  of  our 
lives." 

"But  I  want  to  enjoy  while  I'm  young,  Walt," 
pleaded  she.  "Why  should  we  lead  this  miser 
able,  shriveling  little  life?" 

"We're  living  as  well  as  either  of  us  lived  be 
fore  we  were  married,"  retorted  he. 

Her  eyes  flashed  and  her  bosom  heaved. 
"When  a  man  loves  a  woman,  he  wants  to  give 
her  everything  that  is  fine  and  beautiful.  He 
tries  to  surround  her  with  all  that  a  woman  needs 
in  order  to  appear  at  her  best.  He  doesn't  stint 
and  slight  her." 

He  would  never  quarrel  with  her — another 
1 60 


ENID 


thing  she  had  against  him.  He  now  rose  to  leave 
the  room. 

In  her  anger  she  forgot  the  lost  sixteen  hun 
dred  a  year  and  the  resolutions  of  generous  and 
merciful  secrecy.  She  cried  out: 

uNo  wonder  I  can't  bear  you.  No  wonder  I 
shiver  when  you  touch  me.  You  killed  my  love. 
You  are  not  capable  of  appreciating  a  woman, 
and  you  are  not  fit  to  be  trusted  with  one." 

He  stopped  short.  There  was  a  pause — awful 
for  her.  Then  he  turned  round,  came  back  to 
his  chair  and  slowly  seated  himself.  Said  he : 

"Is  that  so? — what  you  said?" 

She  was  mortally  afraid,  she,  who  had  noth 
ing  but  what  he  saw  fit  to  give  her.  She  wished 
with  all  her  heart  that  she  had  kept  the  secret. 
But  she  could  not  tell  the  lie. 

"Haven't  you  done  everything  you  could  to 
kill  my  love?" 

The  business-like  looking  young  man  was  eye 
ing  her  with  disquietingly  calm  interest  and  dis 
creetness.  Said  he: 

"You  mean  by  insisting  on  our  living  quietly 
161 


ENID 


until  IVe  paid  off  what  I  owe  my  father  for  the 
stock,  and  am  independent?" 

"Oh,  you  know  you  are  mean  about  money," 
retorted  she.  "Why  deny  it?  I'm  still  wearing 
clothes  I  got  for  my  trousseau." 

"So  am  I." 

"But  /  don't  want  to  do  that  sort  of  shabby 
thing." 

He  laughed  unpleasantly.  "When  I  was 
courting,  you  couldn't  talk  enough  about  our  be 
ing  alone,  living  quietly  just  for  each  other." 

"But  I  didn't  know  how  dull  you  were,  Wal 
ter,"  said  she  with  a  bitter-sweet  smile. 

"I  was  just  the  same  then  as  now,"  replied  he. 
"Except  that  then  I  used  to  talk  all  the  time 
about  you.  But  that  subject  became  exhausted. 
You  can't  hold  me  responsible  if  you  no  longer 
supplied  me  with  things  to  say  about  you." 

He  looked  at  her  with  the  exasperating  ex 
pression  of  a  man  who  has  tried  to  score  and 
feels  that  he  has  accomplished  his  object.  She 
could  not  hide  her  wincing. 

"You  say  you  find  me  dull,"  pursued  he,  in  the 
162 


ENID 


placid  way  of  the  easy  victor.  "But  hereafter 
please  don't  forget  that  I  found  you  dull  first." 

"You're  very  much  mistaken  there,"  retorted 
she.  "If  I  hadn't  been  ashamed,  I'd  never  have 
married  you.  But  I  didn't  realize.  A  girl  is  so 
ignorant.  I  had  no  idea  what  marriage  meant." 

He  was  irritated  now.  "You  certainly  con 
cealed  your  feelings  well,  for  all  your  innocent 
young  girlishness.  You  talk  about  your  refine 
ment.  Bosh!  You  women  are  much  coarser 
than  we  men.  You've  just  admitted  a  thing  that 
proves  it." 

"You  are  insulting!  What  cowardice!  You're 
a  man  that  might  strike  a  woman." 

"I  confess  I've  felt  like  spanking  you,  miss, 
many  and  many  a  time." 

She  gazed  at  him  with  wide,  dry  eyes.  "And 
this  is  what  our  courtship  has  sunk  to!"  said  she 
in  a  tone  of  awe  and  horror. 

"No  theatricals,  please,"  said  he  drily.  "If 
you  had  any  real  sensitiveness,  you'd  feel  as  I  do 
about  paying  that  debt  to  father  and  being  inde 
pendent.  But  your  sensitiveness  is  all  for  silly 


ENID 


luxury  and  for  cheap,  high-sounding  talk.  An 
other  thing,  if  you  were  the  sensitive  shrinking 
thing  you  pretend  to  be,  the  awfulness  of  living 
with  a  man  you  didn't  love  and  the  strain  of 
playing  the  hypocrite  as  well  as  any  professional 
fast  lady  would  have  killed  you.  Instead,  you're 
in  remarkably  good  health,  tough  as  hickory. 
Oh,  I  guess  I  haven't  hurt  you  much." 

"You  will  never  know  how  much,  Walter. 
You  don't  understand  women.  They  were  born 
to  suffer." 

"Well — it  seems  to  have  been  good  for  your 
health." 

"How  coarse  you  are !" 

"Indeed  I  am.  So  coarse  that  I  can  still  en 
dure  the  sight  of  you  after  the  degrading  confes 
sion  you've  made."  He  relented.  "I  beg  your 
pardon.  You  are  goading  me  into  saying  things 
I'm  ashamed  of.  But  a  woman  must  expect  con 
sequences  when  she  tells  a  man  he  has  been  re 
pulsive  to  her  and  that  she's  been  hiding  it." 

"You  wrung  the  truth  from  me,"  protested  she. 

"By  refusing  to  buy  you  an  auto?" 
164 


ENID 


uOh,  you  are  so  coarse !  That  had  nothing  to 
do  with  it." 

"You'd  love  me,  no  doubt,  if  I  were  to  give  up 
trying  to  pay  my  debts  and  turn  you  loose  with 
all  the  money  we  have.  But  I  can  live  without 
that  kind  of  love,  my  dear." 

"Coarse — coarse,"  repeated  she.  "It's  useless 
to  talk  to  you." 

"Then  let's  drop  that,"  said  he. 

"But  what  am  /  to  do?"  demanded  Enid. 
"You've  made  it  impossible  for  me  to  love  you. 
My  life  is  utterly  empty.  I'll  go  mad,  just  sit 
ting  and  thinking — thinking — thinking." 

He  sat  smoking  and  reflecting. 

"I  don't  want  to  be  cruel  to  you,"  she  went  on. 
"I  believe  that  you  mean  well.  It  isn't  your  fault 
that — that  I  can't  love  you — that  we're  unsuited 
to  each  other." 

"What  are  you  trying  to  get  at?"  inquired  he. 
"How  much  alimony  I'll  allow  you?" 

She  shivered.  "Walter,  do  please  try  not  to 
be  so  coarse !"  cried  she.  "Try  to  spare  my  feel 
ings  a  little." 


ENID 


He  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "Weren't  you 
hinting  at  divorce?"  he  asked. 

"I  had  nothing  in  mind,"  replied  she.  "Sim 
ply — I  don't  know  what  to  do." 

His  manner  showed  plainly  that  he  regarded 
this  as  mere  evasion.  In  a  tone  of  mockery  he 
said: 

"But  you'd  not  mind  being  free  with  a  nice  fat 
allowance  of  alimony — would  you?" 

"I  never  thought  of  such  a  thing — never!" 

"Bosh!"  retorted  he.  "How  could  I  live  with 
you  two  years  and  a  half  without  discovering  that 
your  talk  about  not  being  practical  was  largely 
bluff.  You're  shrewd,  all  right — shrewd  enough 
to  fool  even  yourself.  So — don't  deceive  your 
self  and  try  to  deceive  me  with  this  nonsense 
about  not  thinking  divorce  and  alimony.  In  this 
day  girls  go  to  the  altar  with  it  in  their  heads, 
I've  read,  and  all  women  think  about  such 
things." 

She — the  slender  and  nervous — was  storming 
about  the  room,  all  aquiver  with  fury.  "Oh,  if 
mama  had  left  me  that  money,  I'd  show  you !" 

166 


ENID 


"But  she  didn't/'  rejoined  he.  aSo — what 
are  you  going  to  do?" 

She  stormed  about,  he  waited.  At  last  she 
seated  herself  again.  "What  an  unfeeling 
wretch  you  are !"  cried  she.  "How  can  you  talk 
in  this  way,  when  you  love  me?" 

"Who  said  I  loved  you?"  replied  he. 

She  looked  at  him,  startled. 

He  returned  her  look,  but  his  was  as  calm 
as  a  stove-maker  in  the  tranquility  of  the  office 
routine.  Said  he : 

"If  you'll  think  hard,  you'll  recall  that  I 
haven't  spoken  the  word  love  since  the  first  or 
second  month  of  our  marriage." 

A  long  silence.  She  stood  his  frank,  calm  gaze 
as  long  as  she  could,  then  dropped  her  eyes. 
When  power  of  speech  came  to  her  she  said  in  a 
low,  dazed  voice: 

"Do  you  mean  to  say  you  don't  love  me?" 

"Like  you,  I  never  did,"  was  his  reply.  "I 
was  crazy  about  you  when  I  proposed.  I  was  al 
ternately  crazy  and  uncertain  until  we  married. 
Then  for  a  while  I  was  altogether  crazy.  But  I 


ENID 


got  tired  just  as  you  did.  You  bored  me  just  as 
I  bored  you.  I  found  you  didn't  appreciate  the 
things  I  think  worth  while,  just  as  you  found  I 
didn't  appreciate  your  pet  things." 

"Why  didn't  you  show  it?" 

"I  was  fooled  by  your  bluff  at  loving  me." 

A  sense  of  deep,  of  sickening  mortification  was 
oozing  through  her.  "You  are  saying  these 
things  to  get  even  with  me." 

He  laughed  pleasantly.  "I'm  saying  them  be 
cause  it's  a  relief  not  to  have  to  pretend  any 
longer.  You  don't  seem  to  be  as  delighted  as 
you,  with  your  sensitive,  delicate  soul,  should  be, 
learning  that  you're  not  making  me  suffer  by  tell 
ing  me  you  don't  love  me.  In  fact,  you  look  dis 
tinctly  disappointed — and  angry." 

"I  care  nothing  about  what  you  think,"  cried 
she.  "All  I  know  is,  I  wish  I  had  never  seen 
you." 

"I  guess  that's  a  state  a  good  many  married 
couples  drop  into  when  they've  got  enough  of 
each  other." 

"How  cowardly  of  you  to  insult  me,  when  you 
168 


ENID 


know    I'm    helpless — know    I'm    dependent    on 
you." 

"I  didn't  ask  you  to  be,"  he  reminded  her. 

He  was  about  to  repair  his  slip  of  saying  "ask" 
when  he  meant  "compel."  But  she  did  not  give 
him  the  chance.  She  rushed  ahead  triumphantly: 

"Yes,  you  did!  You  asked  me  to  marry  you. 
And  when  a  man  asks  a  woman  to  marry  her,  he 
means  that  he  will  treat  her  well — that  he'll  sup 
port  her  according  to  her  station.  And  you've 
broken  your  promises.  Oh,  I  know  why  now. 
It's  because  you  didn't  love  me." 

She  had  outgeneralled  him,  and  his  agitation 
confessed  it. 

"All  you  felt  for  me,"  she  went  on,  "was  a 
something  too  vile  to  name " 

"Oh,  no,  Enid,"  remonstrated  he.  "It's  not  so 
bad  as  all  that." 

"It  seems  vile  to  me,"  retorted  she.  "And  be 
cause  that  was  the  way  you  felt,  you  wouldn't 
treat  me  honorably,  as  you'd  have  treated  a 
woman  you  loved.  No  wonder  you've  been  so 
mean  and  stingy  with  me." 

169 


ENID 


He  was  too  honest  to  deny.  He  nodded 
thoughtfully.  "I  guess  if  I  had  loved  you,  you'd 
have  been  able  to  make  a  fool  of  me — and  of 
yourself.  It's  lucky  I  didn't." 

"Lucky!"  cried  she,  in  a  panic  at  this  unex 
pected,  dangerous  turning  of  her  plank.  "Why, 
if  you  had  treated  me  lovingly,  I'd  have  loved 
you." 

He  stretched  himself  comfortably.  "I'm 
afraid  you  attach  more  value  to  that  love  of 
yours  than  it's  really  entitled  to,  Enid.  You 
women  can  give  yourselves  a  pretty  good  quality 
of  love.  But  the  sort  you  have  for  men  isn't 
worth  much.  I  personally  don't  want  it  at  all. 
No,  my  dear,  a  man  who  falls  in  love  with  a 
woman  is  in  mighty  bad  luck.  He's  ready  to  be 
made  a  fool  of.  And  a  man  whom  a  woman 
loves — poor  devil!  she'll  soon  bleed  him  of  his 
health  and  his  money.  Then — she's  a  widow 
and  ready  to  love  somebody  else." 

She  gazed  at  him  in  unaffected  horror.  Worse 
than  his  boring  silences,  worse  than  his  dull  talk 
about  business  and  politics  and  such  stupidities 

170 


ENID 


was  this  amazing,  revolting  cynicism.  The  man 
was  even  lower  and  coarser  than  she  had  thought. 
She  said: 

"You  hate  me,  don't  you?" 

"No,  indeed,"  replied  he.  "I  think  you're  a 
very  nice,  shallow  little  girl — to  be  quite  honest. 
I  think  you're  well  up  to  the  average.  You're 
not  as  good  looking  as  I  thought  you  were,  when 
I  was  crazy  about  you.  But  your  looks  are  all 
right.  You're  a  good  deal  of  a  faker — fond  of 
posing — but  that's  not  serious.  And  I  guess  all 
of  us  humans  have  a  touch  of  it.  Yes — you  are 
all  right.  I  don't  lay  it  up  against  you  that  I 
made  a  fool  of  myself  about  you." 

"Yes,  you  hate  me,"  said  she  firmly.  "You 
couldn't  talk  to  me  this  way,  if  you  didn't." 

"No — it's  simply  that  you're  not  interesting 
to  me,  any  more  than  I  am  to  you.  You  mustn't 
think  I  hate  you,  just  because  you  hate  me. 
You've  got  reason  for  hating  me.  One  always 
hates  a  person  one  tries  to  get  things  out  of  and 
fails.  You  wanted  my  flattery  and  my  money. 
You  can't  get  either.  So — you  find  me  coarse 

171 


ENID 


and  repulsive.  If  I'd  given  you  both  as  freely 
as  you  wanted  them,  you'd  have  thought  me  a 
poor  damn  fool  and  would  have  despised  me." 

She  stared  wretchedly  into  vacancy.  She  had 
thought  she  had  reached  the  farthest  bourne  of 
tragic  experience  when  she  discovered  that  she 
did  not  love  him,  her  husband.  Now  that  trag 
edy  seemed  a  mere  make-believe  beside  this  real 
ity  of  danger — this  indifference  of  her  husband  to 
her.  "What  shall  I  do!"  she  said,  dismally. 
"What  is  to  become  of  me?" 

"Oh,  you'll  get  along  all  right,"  he  assured 
her  in  an  encouraging  tone.  "You'll  soon  catch 
another,  when  you're  free.  They  say  it's  much 
easier  for  a  woman  to  marry  the  second  time." 
He  laughed  good-humoredly.  "Though  I  must 
say  I  think  you'd  have  trouble  finding  easier  fruit 
than  I  was." 

She  was  so  agitated  that  she  heard  no  more 
after  the  word  "free."  She  started  up,  crying: 

"Do  you  mean  that  you  would  cast  me  off  with 
never  a  thought?  Oh,  you  couldn't  be  as  brutal 
as  that!" 

172 


ENID 


"That's  what  you  want,  isn't  it? — a  divorce?" 

In  all  her  reading,  in  all  the  stories  she  had 
heard  of  the  relations  of  men  and  women,  she 
had  come  upon  nothing  in  any  way  resembling 
this  ghastly  reality.  In  those  romances,  the 
woman  had  always  figured  as  the  central  and  su 
perior  figure.  And  if  they  told  of  women 
wronged,  it  was  man  the  brute  who  was  doing  it 
— and  he  was  soon  brought  to  her  feet  or  to  ter 
rible  judgment.  Nothing  was  hinted  of  this  sor 
did,  savage  truth — the  impossibility  of  woman's 
cutting  any  but  a  sorry  figure  in  a  set-to  with  a 
man,  because  she  had  to  ask  him  for  money,  had 
to  submit  to  whatever  degradation  in  order  to 
get  it.  Money !  "If  I  only  had  that  sixteen  hun 
dred  a  year!"  she  said  to  herself.  But — she 
hadn't.  And  sixteen  hundred  a  year  seemed  a 
pitifully  small  sum,  now  that  she  was  in  the  habit 
of  dreaming  the  dreams  of  the  wife  of  a  rich 
man. 

"Don't  you  want  a  divorce?"  he  repeated. 

"Do  you?"  she  replied,  to  gain  time. 

"I  most  certainly  do,"  was  his  prompt  answer. 
173 


ENID 


"I  can  think  of  no  reason  for  detaining  you.  I'll 
divide  my  salary  of  fifty  dollars  a  week  with  you 
—gladly." 

Twenty-five  dollars  a  week!  She  was  shaking 
with  fury  she  dared  not  show  lest  he  should  jeer 
at  her  as  caught  red-handed  in  sordidness.  Oh, 
what  a  wretched  position  she  was  in! — and  that, 
when  she  was  right — entirely  right,  and  he  ought 
to  be  on  his  knees  offering  her  whatever  she 
wished  to  take. 

She  said  in  a  low,  choked  voice: 

"All  this  means  nothing  to  you.  And  I  can't 
hope  to  make  you  realize  how  I  feel — a  woman 
— who  gave  herself  up  to  you  in  her  purity  and 
innocence  and  trust.  You  can  talk  lightly  of  di* 
vorce " 

"Now,  see  here,  Enid,"  cried  he  impatiently; 
"stop  that  faking.  I've  had  all  the  nonsense 
about  woman  knocked  out  of  me  by  living  with 
one  for  two  years.  A  woman's  no  different  from 
a  man — except  that  her  game  calls  for  a  different 
bluff  and  a  different  front.  You're  half  woman 
and  half  man — you  had  a  father  as  well  as  a 

174 


ENID 


mother.  And  I'm  half  man  and  half  woman — 
for  I  had  a  mother,  I  guess.  You've  got  plenty 
of  sense.  Use  it.  Stop  faking !" 

"Walter — please!"  she  pleaded,  with  sweet 
and  gentle  dignity. 

"I'm  a  plain  business  man,  you're  a  plain  busi 
ness  man's  wife.  Let's  go  at  this  thing  like  the 
plain  business  proposition  that  it  is.  You'd  bet 
ter  talk  business  with  me  direct.  You'll  get  more 
satisfactory  terms  than  you  would  through  any 
lawyer  you  sent  to  me." 

"Can't  you  understand  the  least  little  bit?" 
cried  she.  "You  are  torturing  me!  You  have 
no  refinement — no  sentiment!" 

"Where's  the  hysterics  in  two  people  who've 
made  a  bad  bargain  trying  to  call  it  off?  You 
really  don't  deserve  me.  You  ought  to  be  deal 
ing  with  a  faker  like  yourself  who  was  pretend 
ing  to  tear  his  hair  and  be  refined  in  order  to 
shave  you  down  on  the  alimony." 

"You — posing  as  generous!"  jeered  she. 
"You  who've  offered  to  me  hardly  enough  to 
keep  body  and  soul  together." 

175 


ENID 


He  laughed — and  she  was  furious  at  having 
dropped  neatly  into  the  trap  he  had  set  for  her. 
She  assumed  an  air  of  haughty  disdain.  She 
said : 

"I  don't  know  anything  about  these  things. 
But  I'm  sure  I  have  some  rights  you  can  be  made 
to  respect." 

"Don't  fool  yourself,  Enid,"  said  he.  "The 
law  doesn't  take  any  more  interest  in  faking  than 
I  do.  It  looks  at  these  matters  practically.  It 
says,  'If  the  woman  wants  to  be  supported,  she's 
got  to  pay  for  it  by  taking  care  of  her  husband 
and  by  living  with  him!'  ' 

"You  threaten  me  with — that?"  she  exclaimed, 
struggling  desperately  for  advantage.  "You'd 
force  me  to  live  with  you?" 

"Now,  do  stop  faking,  my  dear  girl,"  said  he. 
"Haven't  I  told  you  I'm  as  anxious  for  you  to 
go  as  you  are  to  be  gone?  I'm  simply  pointing 
out  to  you  that  the  law  would  laugh  at  your 
wounded  sensibilities — when  you  came  asking  it 
to  get  you  a  large  sum  of  my  money  on  the 
strength  of  them.  You  can  be  as  sensitive  as  you 

176 


ENID 


like.  But  when  you  try  to  use  marriage  as  a 
means  of  getting  a  fat  living  without  giving  any 
thing  in  return,  the  law  refuses  to  look  on  you 
as  sensitive.  Come  now — honestly — isn't  the  law 
right  ?" 

She  made  a  gesture  of  despair.  "You  never 
could  understand!" 

"Then  don't  try  to  make  me  understand. 
Take  the  twenty-five  a  week  and  leave  me  to  wal 
low  alone." 

"I  couldn't  touch  your  money!"  cried  she. 

"You've  got  to  live  until  you  marry  again," 
rejoined  he.  "So,  your  remark  translated  from 
fake  into  plain  English,  can  only  mean  that  you'll 
try  to  get  better  terms  through  a  lawyer.  Well 
— have  your  way.  You'll  find  I'm  right — that 
you  can't  get  a  red  out  of  me  unless  I'm  willing." 

There  he  abruptly  left  her — not  in  anger,  but 
simply  because  a  glimpse  of  his  watch  warned 
him  that  he  was  overdue  at  his  work.  Another 
of  her  deep  grievances  against  him — another  of 
those  covers  and  justifications  of  the  unconfessed 
real  grievance — was  that  he  always  subordinated 

177 


ENID 


her  to  his  work,  his  "coarse  craze  for  money." 
Presently  she  gathered  herself  together  and  went 
forth.  She  had  often  felt  the  need  to  confide; 
now  she  felt  the  necessity  to  confide.  Among  peo 
ple  at  all  prudent — in  towns  like  Lester — the 
longing  to  confide  dares  seek  no  outlets  but  the 
doctor  and  the  lawyer.  Enid's  doctor  was  a 
youngish  man  whose  way  of  looking  at  her  was 
a  discreet  but,  to  a  woman  of  keen  instinct,  un 
mistakable  suggestion  of  a  waiting  and  willing 
attitude.  There  remained  only  the  lawyer — her 
mother's  lawyer  and  friend,  Judge  Bowers;  he, 
by  the  way,  had  not  advised  her  mother  to  or  in 
those  stealthy  and  ruinous  speculations. 

As  she  walked  along,  she  thought  about  that 
talk  with  Walter.  While  they  were  talking  she 
had  been  wholly  absorbed  in  what  he  was  say 
ing,  in  keeping  in  place,  or  trying  to  keep  in  place 
the  cover  over  her  secret  self  which  he  was  tug 
ging  away  at — not  without  success.  It  is  indeed 
an  engrossing  occupation  to  try  to  prevent  one's 
inmost  self  from  being  revealed  to  another's  eyes 
— and,  worse  still,  to  one's  own  eyes.  But  now 


ENID 


she  began  to  recall  how  different  he  had  been 
from  the  taciturn,  dull  Walter  she  had  been 
yawning  at  for  two  years.  How  he  had  waked 
up !  A  very  ugly  Walter  was  this  awakened  one 
— but  still  not  the  sodden  clod  she  had  thought 
him.  Different,  entirely  different  though  this  in 
sulting,  cynical,  hard  Walter  was  from  the  ar 
dent  and  attractive  Walter  of  their  days  of  court 
ship,  there  was  yet  a  strong  resemblance  between 
them.  Both  were  alive,  full  of  fire,  able  to  stir 
emotion,  strong  emotion,  in  her. 

She  stopped  short  in  the  street  and  stared  un- 
seeingly  into  the  very  face  of  a  passing  laborer, 
much  to  his  astonishment.  She  said  to  herself, 
"He  was  telling  the  truth!  He  doesn't  care  for 
me — and  hasn't !  That  was  why  he  was  so  dull. 
He  found  out  he  didn't  care  for  me  before  I 
found  out  I  didn't  care  for  him.  .  .  .  Was 
that  why  I  lost  interest  in  him?" 

Those  humiliating  thoughts  made  her  blood 
burn  her  skin.  No!  No! — she  had  stopped 
caring  for  him — if  she  ever  had  cared — because 
he  was  unworthy  of  her,  he,  the  mere  dollar- 

179 


ENID 


chaser.  And  the  reason  he  had  stopped  caring 
for  her  was  because  she  was  so  far  his  superior. 

She  walked  on,  comforted — to  a  certain  extent. 

Judge  Bowers — old  and  white,  and  suave  in  a 
fatherly  yet  friendly  way — had  spent  a  large  part 
of  the  days  of  the  years  of  a  long  life  at  the 
study  and  practice  of  the  art  of  putting  people  at 
their  ease  for  difficult  confidences.  Enid  was  soon 
in  full  gallop  of  confession.  She  exhibited  her 
wounded  sensibilities,  her  bruised  heart,  her  soul, 
high,  sorrowful.  She  said  no  more  about  ali- 
monious  divorce  than  she  had  said  to  Walter  be 
fore  he  himself  introduced  that  coarse  and  sordid 
theme.  That  is,  she  said  nothing  at  all — hinted 
nothing  whether  openly  or  covertly.  Yet — 
strangely — when  she  finished,  or,  rather  paused 
for  some  comment  from  the  sympathetic  old  law 
yer,  his  first  remark  was : 

"Very  sad — very  sad,  Enid.  But — my  dear 
child — unfortunately — I  see  no  ground  for  di 
vorce — especially  with  alimony." 

Into  the  slender,  wistful  young  face  flashed  and 
flushed  a  furious  anger.  "How  can  you  think 

180 


ENID 


me  so  coarse,  Mr.  Bowers  1"  cried  she.  '7  didn't 
say — or  mean — anything  like  that." 

"Then — what  did  you  mean?"  rejoined  he, 
gently. 

What  did  she  mean?  A  human  being — a  ra 
tional  human  being  did  not  talk  on  and  on  and 
on,  without  meaning  something.  "I — I — wanted 
your  advice,"  said  she  feebly. 

"Oh!"  said  the  aged  lawyer — and  it  infuriated 
her  afresh  to  see  in  his  gentle,  sympathetic  face 
that  he  was  incredulous.  What  coarse  brutes 
men  were !  No — not  all  men.  Surely  some 
where  there  must  be  men  capable  of  at  least  un 
derstanding  a  highly,  delicately  organized  femi 
nine  being  like — like  some  women. 

"You  are  a  rare  spirit,  Enid,"  he  went  on. 
"You  always  were  strange."  He  meant  strange 
or  mysterious  to  look  at.  But  he  either  did  not 
know  or  did  not  care  just  then  to  discuss  how 
an  unusual  exterior  did  not  necessarily  mean  an 
unusual  interior — or  how  a  woman,  with  unim 
portant,  though  to  men  transiently  interesting, 
surface  oddities  might  get  from  her  mirror  as 

181 


ENID 


false  a  notion  of  her  own  nature  as  men  get  of 
it  from  the  same  untrustworthy  reporter.  "You 
always  were  strange,"  said  he.  "Different  look 
ing  from  any  of  the  girls.  But — you've  got  to 
live  life  just  like  the  rest  of  us,  my  child.  We 
all  have  to  adjust  ourselves  to  conditions." 
"I  can't!"  murmured  Enid.  "I  can't!" 
The  Judge  smiled  to  himself.  These  women! 
Their  absurd  little  vanity — their  excitement 
about  themselves,  fostered  from  childhood  by  in 
stilling  in  them  the  idea  that  each  of  them  pos 
sessed  a  priceless  physical  treasure  which  the 
whole  world  of  males  was  plotting  day  and  night 
to  wrest  from  them.  Aloud  he  said: 

"Men  are  never  worthy  of  you  women.  Men 
are  of  a  coarser  fibre.  But  they  have  their  good 
points,  Enid.  They  have  their  uses.  The  way 
to  get  on  with  a  man  is  to  ignore  his  bad  points 
and  to  fix  your  mind  resolutely  on  his  good  ones. 
Don't  you  think,  my  dear,  that  you'd  get  on  more 
happily  if  you — brooded  less — if  you  thought 
less  about  yourself — and  made  yourself  think 
about  other  things?" 

182 


ENID 


To  discharge  his  duty  as  a  lawyer  and  as  an 
old  person  counseling  a  young  person  he  had  to 
make  his  words  distinct  of  meaning.  But  as  he 
spoke  he  soothed  her  vanity  and  kept  it  quiet 
with  the  skillful  softness  of  his  tone  and  man 
ner. 

"I  do  brood  an  awful  lot,"  she  confessed. 
"But  how  can  I  help  it.  As  you  say,  I  have  a 
strange,  sensitive  nature." 

"Yes — yes,  but  you  must  try  to  forget  that. 
Try  to  interest  yourself  in  your  life.  I  assure 
you,  my  dear,  no  matter  where  you  live  or  with 
whom,  you  will  find  living  a  practical  business. 
It  can't  have  the  hazy,  unreal  atmosphere  of  the 
novels  and  the  poems.  Force  yourself  to  be  in 
terested,  and  soon  you  will  be  interested  without 
forcing.  There's  nothing  in  brooding  or  cloud 
and  rainbow-chasing — nothing  but  disappoint 
ment  and  unhappiness.  Poets  get  up  that  sort  of 
stuff — not  to  live,  but  to  sell,  my  dear.  And  they 
eat  and  drink  the  proceeds." 

"I  can't  live  a  crude,  unimaginative  life,"  de 
clared  she. 

183 


ENID 


"Try  it — try  it,"  urged  he.  uln  fact,  youVe 
got  to.  You  can't  live  on  air." 

She  debated  telling  him  Walter's  offer  of  a 
divorce  with  the  stingy  twenty-five  a  week.  But 
she  decided  that  it  would  be  most  indelicate  in  a 
wife  to  violate  the  sacredness  of  a  private  talk 
between  her  husband  and  herself.  Also,  Judge 
Bowers  might  misunderstand,  might  misjudge 
her,  if  he  learned  that  the  subject  of  alimony  had 
actually  come  up  between  her  and  Walter.  Also, 
what  an  abasement  to  confess  that  a  man,  after 
having  lived  with  her  and  having  had  every  op 
portunity  to  discover  the  wonders  of  her  nature, 
the  joys  of  her  intimacy,  had  offered  her  free 
dom — and  a  paltry  twenty-five  a  week.  No,  the 
sacredness  of  marital  confidences  must  not  be  vio 
lated. 

Her  wistful  face  lent  itself  to  an  expression  of 
despair-beyond-utterance  that  most  of  those  who 
suffer  from  the  cruel,  real  tragedies  of  life  could 
never  have  attained.  As  the  old  Judge  looked 
at  her,  he  was  profoundly  moved — not,  as  he 
fancied,  by  her  despair,  but  by  her  look  of 

184 


ENID 


despair.  The  actors — on  and  off  the  stage,  con 
scious  and  self-deceiving — get  almost  all  the  sym 
pathy  in  this  world;  there  is  little  left  for  the 
wretched  ones  who  are  suffering  so  that  they 
neglect  to  make  their  agonies  look  interesting. 

"I  don't  know  what  to  do!"  she  said,  rising 
and  standing  before  him — that  strong,  slim 
young  figure  irradiating  allure  from  its  restless 
nerves;  that  intense,  passionate,  passion-stirring 
little  face  beneath  the  swirl  of  thick  bronze-col 
ored  hair.  She  stirred  the  languid  currents  of 
the  old  man.  She  sighed  deeply,  said:  "I  guess 
there's  no  hope." 

"Your  husband  loves  you " 

Enid  flushed  guiltily. 

" is  proud  of  you — will  do  anything  you 

wish  for  you — except,  of  course,  give  you  up. 
For  your  own  sake,  try  to  make  him  happy." 

Enid  frowned  impatiently.  The  old  dotard 
was  talking  like  a  copy  book.  What  a  fool  she 
was  to  come  to  such  a  one — she  with  the  fire  and 
passion  of  youth  in  her  veins,  with  the  mad  thirst 
for  life  at  its  alivest.  She  thanked  him,  broke 

185 


ENID 


through  his  efforts  to  induce  her  to  linger,  re 
turned  home.  And  there,  alone,  she  was  free  to 
give  herself  up  to  the  luxury  of  examining  her 
known  wounds  and  seeking  those  previously  over 
looked.  Of  all  the  mischief  the  devil  finds  for 
idle  hands,  the  most  mischievous — and  the  most 
indulged — is  feeling  one's  own  sore  spots,  and 
pressing  resolutely  for  latent  sore  spots  until 
there  is  response.  Enid,  with  nothing  else  to  do, 
passed  a  busy  day. 

At  half  past  six  she  heard  Walter  splashing 
about  in  the  bathroom.  At  seven  they  met  for 
dinner.  He  was,  as  usual — silent,  listless,  bored. 
Yes,  bored;  she  understood  his  manner  now.  He 
bored  her  to  irritation;  she  bored  him  to  indif 
ference.  She  had  a  series  of  Jiot  flushes  as  she 
compared  the  two  ways  of  boring;  for  again  it 
seemed  he  had  the  advantage  over  her.  It  was 
maddening,  to  be  the  superior  person,  yet  to 
seem  to  be  the  inferior.  After  dinner  he  fol 
lowed  her  to  the  sitting  room  to  smoke.  The 
routine  of  their  monotonous  life !  And  after  the 
cigar,  as  he  was  an  earlier  riser  by  two  hours 

186 


ENID 


than  she,  he  would  go  to  bed,  leaving  her  to  read 
or  to  think  about  herself  and  him,  about  him — 
and  herself. 

She  was  playing  the  piano  softly  to  herself. 
He  said: 

"May  I  interrupt  that — whatever  it  is  you're 
playing?" 

"I'll  stop  if  it  annoys  you,"  said  she  coldly. 

"Oh,  no,  it  doesn't  annoy  me.  I  don't  notice 
it  at  all.  Perhaps  it  even  helps  me  to  think.  Yes, 

I'm  sure  it  does.  But I'm  going  to  bed  as 

soon  as  I  finish  this  cigar.  To-morrow's  pay  roll 
day.  I  wanted  to  say  one  or  two  things  to  you." 

The  wistful,  passionate  little  face,  the  wide, 
sensitive  mouth  grew  tense — even  hard. 

"I've  got  to  withdraw  that  offer  I  made  you 
after  lunch  to-day." 

"Oh,  yes — that  generous  offer." 

He  frowned  slightly.  He  started  to  make  an 
angry  retort,  controlled  himself.  He  said: 

"I  had  a  talk  with  father.  He  told  me  point 
blank  that  I'd  have  to  get  out  of  the  firm  if  I 
didn't  drop  the  divorce  business.  He  said  that 


ENID 


every  married  couple  went  through  exactly  the 
same  experience  you  and  I  are  having,  and  that 
only  the  damn  fools  made  a  scandal.  He  said  he 
wouldn't  tolerate  divorce  unless  you  cut  up  with 
another  man  or  ran  away — without  any  money 
from  me.  He  was  heading  off  collusion." 

Walter  paused  to  give  her  a  chance  to  speak. 
She  did  not  take  it. 

"As  it'd  be  very  much  to  my  disadvantage  to 
break  with  him/'  Walter  went  on,  "just  at  this 
stage  of  the  game,  why,  I'll  not  consent  to  a  di 
vorce.  And  as  I  told  you,  you  can't  get  one  with 
out  my  consent." 

As  there  was  no  danger  of  her  "bluff"  being 
"called,"  if  "bluff"  it  was,  she  ventured  a  bitter, 
contemptuous  little  laugh. 

"But  you  won't  have  to  wait  long,"  he  contin 
ued.  "Inside  of  two  years,  at  the  present  rate — 
maybe  sooner — I'll  own  that  stock  and  be  in  a 
position  to  make  terms  with  father.  I'm  getting 
the  business  more  and  more  in  my  hands.  So,  as 
soon  as  I  can,  I'll  free  you." 

Anything  so  remote  as  two  years  away — two 
188 


ENID 


years  of  this  dragging  dullness— made  no  impres 
sion  on  her.    She  waited. 

"Meanwhile,"  proceeded  he,  "I  think  we  can 
arrange  to  make  each  other  fairly  comfortable." 

This  sounded  promising.  "I'm  willing  to  do 
anything  I  can,n  said  she.  "Do  you  wish  me  to 
go  away?" 

"We  can't  afford  that,"  replied  he.  "Anyhow, 
I'd  not  consent  to  it.  I've  no  fancy  to  join  the 
society  of  fools  who  mail  their  money  to  women 
idling  about  and  amusing  themselves.  In  the  sec 
ond  place,  I  want  none  of  that  kind  of  scandal- 
breeding  nonsense.  Finally I'm  going  to 

speak  plainly." 

"I  don't  need  to  be  told  that,"  said  she  sar 
castically. 

"Plain  speaking — that's  my  way,"  replied  he, 
unmoved.  "I  say  right  out  what  I've  got  to  say. 
That's  why  I'm  getting  on  well  with  the  men. 
They  hated  it  at  first.  Now  they  like  it  because 
they  always  know  just  where  they  stand." 

"How  like  you,  to  put  your  wife  on  a  level  with 
your  workmen!" 

189 


ENID 


"I've  only  one  way  to  treat  everybody/'  re 
joined  he.  "But,  no  matter  about  that.  I  want 
you  to  stay  here — to  stay  'on  the  job.*  I  think 
your  self-respect  would  compel  you  to  stay " 

"Don't  deceive  yourself." 

"Then  it  ought  to.  You  may  not  realize  it,  but 
you'd  be  degraded  by  taking  money  you  didn't 


earn." 


"Ah!"  And  she  laughed  in  mocking  scorn. 
"You  want  me  to  earn  my  board  and  clothes.  I 
— your  wife/" 

"But  you're  not  my  wife — and  don't  want  to 
be.  And  even  if  you  were — I  suppose  it's  part  of 
my  general  lowness  of  character  and  lack  of  those 
precious  fine  sensibilities,  but  I  can't  see  how  it 
would  degrade  any  one,  even  a  wife,  to  earn  their 
board  and  clothes.  In  business,  trying  to  get 
something  for  nothing  is  called  by  a  rather  ugly 
name.  How  is  it  in  those  refined  circles  you  as 
pire  to?" 

"Buying  and  selling!  Oh,  how  can  you  think 
there's  nothing  in  the  world  but  buying  and  sell 
ing?" 

190 


ENID 


"Oh,  yes,  there's  a  lot  besides,"  answered  he, 
and  his  look  made  her  uncomfortable.  "But 
board  and  clothes  isn't  one  of  those  things.  It's  a 
thing  to  be  earned.  So — I  expect  you  to  do  your 
share  of  the  work.  That  means,  stay  here  and 
run  the  house." 

She  was  angry  at  herself  for  feeling  enormously 
relieved. 

"I'll  make  no  complaints  about  the  past,"  pro 
ceeded  he. 

She  interrupted  angrily,  "What  do  you  find 
fault  with?" 

He  smiled  amiably.  "Now,  Enid,  you  can't 
draw  me  up  that  alley  for  a  fight.  I'll  simply 

say "  He  tossed  the  end  of  the  finished  cigar 

out  of  the  window  and  rose — "that  in  the  future 
I'll  expect  as  good  service  as  I  could  get  at  a  hotel 
for  the  same  money." 

She  looked  at  him  with  cold  fury.  She  could 
find  no  retort,  though  he  was  outraging  every 
decency.  She  dared  not  remind  him  that  she  was 
his  wife ;  for,  had  she  not  resigned  from  that  po 
sition,  and  had  not  her  resignation  been  accepted? 

191 


ENID 


Anyhow,  though  she  were  still  his  wife,  such  a 
man  would  not  regard  that  exalted  word  as  mean 
ing  anything  but  a  species  of  housekeeper  and 
mender. 

"If  you  do  your  part,  I  think  we'll  get  on  well 
enough.  It'll  be  a  great  gain  not  to  have  to  play 
the  hypocrite  toward  each  other — won't  it?" 

She  was  fighting  with  threatening  hysterics. 

"We've  put  our  affairs  on  a  sound,  sensible 
basis " 

With  a  stifled  scream  she  fled  upstairs  and 
locked  herself  in  the  little  spare  room. 

An  hour  and  a  half  later  he  knocked  on  the 
door  and  said: 

"Please  come  out  of  my  room.  I  want  to  go 
to  bed." 

"I'm  going  to  keep  this  room,"  replied  she, 
from  the  bed  where  she  was  lying. 

"That  won't  do.  It'd  be  uncomfortable  for 
both  of  us,  the  way  everything  is  arranged. 
Please  don't  keep  me  up.  I've  got  a  hard  day  to 


morrow." 


192 


ENID 


He  was  obviously  right  about  their  conveni 
ence.  She  effaced  the  traces  of  the  storm  as  best 
she  could  and  opened  the  door.  He  was  sitting 
on  the  banister  of  the  hall  stairway,  in  pyjamas 
and  bath  robe.  As  she  was  passing  him,  he  laid 
a  detaining  hand  on  her  arm.  She  drew  back, 
her  red  and  swollen  eyes  flashing  from  her  swollen 
and  distinctly  homely  face. 

"Let's  shake  hands  on  the  new  deal,"  said  he 
affably.  "Why  take  it  hard,  when  each  of  us  has 
got  the  principal  part  of  what  he  wants?  Be 
sensible,  Enid.  You  know  one  can't  have  one's 
own  way  in  this  world.  Everybody  has  to  make 
the  best  of  things." 

She  ignored  his  proffered  hand. 

"What  is  your  quarrel  with  me? — besides  being 
angry  because  I'm  not  bowed  down  by  finding  out 
that  you  don't  love  me?" 

"I'm  not  angry,"  protested  she,  angrily. 

"Then — shake  hands  on  the  new  deal." 

"No." 

"You  refuse  to  be  friends?  You  insist  on  be 
ing  enemies?" 


ENID 


"You  have  insulted  me — again  and  again." 

"I  have  told  you  the  truth.  That's  a  very  un 
pleasant  experience — in  the  beginning.  But  If 
you  listen  and  use  your  good  sense,  you'll  find  it 
grows  more  and  more  pleasant.  Whereas  the 

other  sort  of  thing Come,  Enid,  be  a  sport 

— shake  hands." 

Reluctantly  she  touched  his  hand  and  went  on 
to  her  room — that  had  been  their  room.  She  was 
furious  with  herself  in  a  disgustingly  futile  way — 
furious  because  she  found  she  had  cried  out  of 
herself  the  worst  of  her  "mad."  She  told  herself 
that  the  end  of  the  world  had  come ;  yet  there  the 
world  was — keeping  right  on.  She  said  she  would 
never  be  able  to  sleep.  But  her  body,  vulgarly 
material,  refused  to  keep  vigil  with  her  anguished 
soul.  It  promptly  went  to  sleep. 

And  what  is  a  soul  to  do  when  a  body  refuses 
to  back  it  up  but  insists  on  sleeping — and  eating 
and  the  rest  of  the  coarse  routine  of  life? 

Enid  Prescott  slept — slept  soundly. 


194 


Ill 

LOVE 

MRS.  WALTER  PRESCOTT  of  Les 
ter,  Pa.,  was  visiting  her  cousin, 
Mrs.  Sam  Croly,  of  Wilkesbarre. 
They  had  always  been  close  friends;  during  this 
brief  visit — less  than  two  weeks — they  had  be 
come  so  intimate  that  they  were  almost  ready  to 
discuss  their  husbands  truthfully.  They  were  at 
about  the  same  age — twenty-five.  They  had  been 
married  about  the  same  length  of  time — five 
years.  Enid  Prescott  was  darkish  and  slim — a 
narrow,  nervous  figure,  a  small,  intense  face,  no 
tably  wide  mouth,  notably  abundant  bronze  hair 
loosely  and  gracefully  dressed.  Jennie  Croly  was 
rather  fair,  voluptuous,  "vivacious"  rather  than 
nervous — that  is,  having  the  placid  temperament 
that  sparkles  or  pretends  to  sparkle.  Each 
thought  the  other  charming  in  a  "different"  way. 

195 


ENID 


And  each  was  right,  and  there  was  no  danger — 
with  ordinary  good  luck — of  either  becoming  es 
tranged  by  jealous  vanity.  Each  in  her  own  town 
belonged  to  that  small  group  of  men  and  women 
who,  in  all  our  American  cities  and  most  of  the 
towns  nowadays,  keep  in  the  main  current  of 
fashions,  manners  and  ideas  flowing  across  the 
Atlantic  from  Paris  and  London  and  sending  out 
branches  in  every  direction  from  New  York. 
Time  was,  not  so  many  years  ago,  when  the  New 
Yorker,  inspecting  any  other  city  or  town,  had 
ever  at  his  supercilious  lips  the  coarse  but  mean 
ing  word  "jay."  Not  so  to-day.  Wherever  he  is 
in  America  he  is  reminded  of  "home" — that  is  of 
the  small  prosperous  and  comely  part  of  the  vast 
New  York  stretch  of  all  kinds  and  conditions 
mostly  poor  to  poverty-blasted.  In  New  York 
Mrs.  Prescott  and  Mrs.  Croly  would  have  been 
noted  at  once  as  "out-of-town"  people — good 
looking,  attractive,  "up-to-date,"  but  not  native. 
In  their  native  places  they  "looked  New  York." 

These  material  and  apparently  surface  facts 
about  the  two  young  women  may  perhaps  give  the 

196 


ENID 


sagacious  reader  a  better  notion  of  how  sympa 
thetic  they  were  to  each  other  than  would  a  more 
ambitious-sounding  attempt  to  analyze  their  souls 
and  catalogue  their  agreeing  opinions  on  heaven, 
hell  and  novels  and  art. 

Said  Jennie  to  her  visiting  cousin : 
"You  mustn't  go  away  Thursday,  Enid." 
"Thursday,"  replied  young  Mrs.  Prescott. 
"Sam's  boss  has  asked  us  to  go  in  his  private 
car  to  New  York.     Two  nights — a  theater,  an 
opera.    Dinners  and  suppers  at  the  Waldorf,  the 
Ritz — teas  at  the  Plaza." 

Enid   looked   gloomy.      But    she    repeated — 
drearily  as  well  as  firmly:    "Thursday." 

"Nonsense.    Your  husband  wouldn't  mind  your 
staying." 

"I  suppose  not.    But — I  must  go." 
"You  haven't  anything  on  earth  to  take  you 
back  to  Lester." 

Enid  smiled  bitterly.    "Except  my  job." 
Mrs.  Croly's  blue  eyes  looked  puzzled. 
"I'm  not  a  married  woman,"  explained  Enid. 
"I'm  a  'hired  girl.'    This  visit — it's  my  vacation." 

197 


ENID 


It  was  the  first  time  in  her  grown-up  years  that 
Enid  had  given  way  to  the  longing  to  make  in 
discreet  confidences.  It  was  the  first  time  she  had 
said  anything  to  anybody — except  her  husband — 
that  would  have  disturbed  the  general  opinion  that 
her  marriage  was  happy,  or  at  least  pleasantly 
successful.  She  was  frightened  by  her  confession 
as  soon  as  the  words  were  spoken.  Also  she  was 
a  little  ashamed.  Jennie  Croly  saw,  and  under 
stood,  and  proceeded  to  take  the  one  course  that 
would  save  their  friendship  from  ruin.  She  has 
tened  to  make  an  equally  damaging,  unwomanly, 
unwifely  and  altogether  indiscreet  confession 
about  herself.  If  she  had  not,  Enid  would  have 
begun  to  be  suspicious,  distrustful  and  would  soon 
have  been  disliking  her.  Said  she : 

"Then  you're  not  any  happier  than  I 
am?" 

Enid  was  genuinely  astonished.  "Why,  you 
and  Sam  get  on  beautifully,"  she  cried. 

Jennie  laughed.  "If  I'd  been  visiting  you, 
wouldn't  I  have  thought  you  and  Walter  Prescott 
were  an  ideal  couple?" 

198 


ENID 


'We've   lived   like    strangers    for   two    years 


now." 


"I  envy  you,"  said  Jennie  in  a  dry,  curt  way. 

There  was  a  brief  pause,  during  which  each 
woman  was  thinking  about  herself.  Jennie  re 
sumed  : 

"You'll  never  know  what — what  degradation 
is,  until  you're  married  to  a  man  who  looks  on 
women  as  mere  playthings.  I  don't  know  what 
your  'job'  is.  But  it's  not  as  repulsive  as  mine. 
Mine's  keeping  bathed  and  dressed  and  perfumed 
and  pretty  and  sweet.  I'm  not  allowed  to  do 
anything  else — to  think  anything  else. 
I  liked  it  at  first — for  a  year  or  two.  I  thought 
it  was  love.  I  didn't  understand.  Perhaps  I'd 
have  liked  it  always  if  I'd  remained  as  silly  and 
empty-headed  and  ignorant  as  I  was  when  he 
married  me.  But  unfortunately  I — grew  up.  If 
he  found  it  out,  he'd  abandon  me  altogether. 
And — I'm  dependent  on  him.  I've  got  all  sorts 
of  tastes  for  comfort  and  luxury,  and  I  couldn't 
make  a  living  as  a  servant." 

"I  could  at  least  do  that — now,"  said  Enid. 
199 


ENID 


"I've  learned  enough  in  the  last  two  years  to 
qualify  as  a  housekeeper.  .  .  .  Yes,  I  think 
I  could  earn  my  twenty-five  a  week,  out  at  service. 
He  gives  me  fifty  a  week  to  run  the  house  and 
keep  myself.  So,  IVe  calculated  that  my  personal 
share  is  twenty-five  a  week."  She  laughed  con 
temptuously.  "Oh,  IVe  got  a  generous  husband. 
What  he  paid  me  was  far  too  much  for  my  ser 
vices  the  first  year.  But  I  think  I  earn  it  now." 

"You  don't  realize  how  well  off  you  are,"  said 
Mrs.  Croly.  "You're  at  least  allowed  to  do  some 
thing — and  to  handle  some  money — and  to  have 
a  few  dollars  you  can  call  your  own.  .  .  . 
Do  you  suppose  I  don't  know  what  it  means  when 
he  comes  home  from  a  trip  and  brings  me  an  un 
usually  fine  present?  And  he  thinks  he  has  both 
wiped  out  his  sin  and  fooled  me." 

The  expression  of  her  cousin's  face  frightened 
Enid.  "Oh,  Jen!"  she  exclaimed.  "Aren't  you 
too  bitter  against  him?" 

"If  I  had  any  courage  or  self  respect,  I'd  kill 
him  or  leave  him.  I  have  grown  to  hate  him." 
Her  face  cleared,  and  she  was  smiling.  "What 

200 


ENID 


does  my  hate  amount  to  ?  I'll  stay  on  at  my  'job' 
until — as  long  as  I  can't  do  any  better — perhaps 
longer,  for  I'm  a  white  rabbit  when  it  comes  to 
scandal  of  any  kind — and  I'm  as  afraid  as  death 
of  Sam.  He'd  fling  me  into  the  gutter  if  I  did — 
what  he  does  every  time  he  goes  away." 

Enid  was  not  sure  whether  Jennie  loved  her 
husband  and  was  wildly  jealous  or  hated  him  as 
she  alleged.  Perhaps  Jennie,  in  the  very  bottom 
most  depth  of  her  heart,  was  herself  not  sure 
which.  At  any  rate  Enid,  being  altogether  hu 
man,  was  too  full  of  her  own  affairs  to  have  more 
than  shallow  and  fleeting  attention  or  sympathy 
for  any  one's  else.  She  said: 

"How  dreadful!  Jen,  how  different  marriage 
is  from  what  we  dreamed  as  girls!  I  thought  I 
loved  Walter.  But  I,  too,  grew  up.  And  when 
I  discovered  that  I  was  married  to  a  man  who 
was  simply " 

She  cast  about  for  a  word  that  would  sum  up 
sordid  plus  practical  plus  unidealistic  plus  incap 
able  of  feeling  either  the  milder  or  the  finer  emo 
tions.  Jennie  suggested: 

201 


ENID 


"Simply  a  stove  manufacturer?'1 

"That's  it,"  assented  Enid.  "He  lives  to  make 
money  by  selling  stoves.  He  has  nothing  to  give 
a  woman — no  understanding  of  complex  natures 
— of  woman  nature — the  kind  of  women  we 
are." 

Jennie  nodded  sympathetically.  "Oh,  if  I  only 
had  an  income!"  said  she  between  her  shut  teeth. 
"But  as  it  is  I  don't  dare  even  go  downtown  with 
out  his  consent.  And  I  look  so  free !  And  every 
body  thinks  I  am — thinks  he  pampers  and  spoils 
me.  Why,  he  won't  allow  me  to  have  more  than 
a  few  of  my  jewels  at  a  time.  He  pretends  it's 
safer  to  keep  them  in  the  big  vault  at  the  coal 


mines." 


Enid  listened  with  an  air  of  interest,  but  has 
tened  to  break  the  pause  with  her  own  story : 

"And  when  I  found  out  I  didn't  love  him,  I 
lost  my  temper  one  day — and  told  him." 

"That  was  foolish !"  exclaimed  Jennie. 

"He  then  confessed  to  me  that  he  didn't  love 
me,  either,"  said  Enid. 

"Probably  said  it  just  for  spite." 
202 


ENID 


"No.  He  meant  it.  The  truth  is  we're  not  at 
all  suited  to  each  other.  We  bore  each  other." 

"Why  didn't  you  get  a  divorce?"  asked  Jennie. 

"I  hate  scandal  as  much  as  you  do.  And  I — 
well,  I  shrank  from  divorce.  I  don't  think  it's 
wicked  or  anything  like  that.  The  nicest  kind  of 
people  do  it  freely  nowadays.  But — I'm  very 
sensitive." 

"I'd  have  tried  to  conquer  my  feelings,"  said 
Jennie.  "But  I  found  out  that  I  couldn't  get 
enough  alimony  to  live  on  decently." 

"I  found  out  that,  too,"  now  confessed  Enid. 
"In  fact,  I  couldn't  have  got  even  a  divorce  with 
out  his  consent." 

"But  he  wanted  a  divorce — or  pretended  to — 
didn't  he?" 

Enid  recklessly  blurted  out  the  last  fact  neces 
sary  to  the  full  truth : 

"Yes,  but  he'd  give  me  only  twenty-five  a  week 
alimony." 

"How  disgusting!"  cried  Jennie.  "Why,  the 
Prescotts  are  rich!" 

"He  said  his  salary  was  only  fifty  a  week.  But 
203 


ENID 


that  was  just  part  of  his  stinginess.  He  owns  a 
lot  of  stock  in  the  company — and  his  father  owns 
the  rest.  He  said  he  hadn't  paid  his  father  for 
the  stock — that  he  was  saving  and  straining  to 
pay,  so  he'd  be  independent.  That  was  his  ex 
cuse  for  making  us  live  like  a  laborer's  family — 
on  fifty  a  week." 

"Do  you  mean  to  tell  me  you  live  on  fifty  a 
week!"  exclaimed  Jenny. 

"That's  all  he'll  spend." 

"Well,  I'd  not  stand  that!"  cried  Jennie. 

"What  would  you  do?" 

Jennie  looked  blank.  "I— I'd "  She 

laughed.  "I'd  stand  it,  I  guess." 

"Don't  imagine  I  submitted  without  a  lot  of 
thinking,"  said  Enid.  "But — what's  a  woman 
to  do?" 

"I  often  wonder  how  other  women  manage  to 
arrange  those  things  so  well." 

"I've  been  looking  into  that,"  said  Enid.  "I 
always  read  about  the  divorces  in  the  papers — 
and  get  what  I  can  from  people  I  talk  with.  I've 
found  out  that  nearly  all  the  divorces  are  either 

204 


ENID 


among  working  people  where  the  woman  can  get 
along  about  as  well  alone  as  with  the  man,  or 
else  among  very  rich  people  where  the  wife  is 
rich  as  well  as  the  husband — or  something  like 
that.  But  among  our  sort  of  people  they  don't 
do  much  divorcing."  She  smiled  peculiarly. 
"And  I  guess  you  and  I  know  it  isn't  for  the  bun 
combe  reason  you  hear  so  much — that  married 
people  of  middle  fortune  are  happy  and  con 
tented." 

"Isn't  it  frightful  to  be  as  we  are?"  cried  Jen 
nie.  "With  all  the  fine  instincts  and  tastes  and 
all  the  longing  for  a  beautiful  life  of  emotion  and 
sentiment,  yet  forced  to  be  enslaved  to  men  who 
think  and  care  for  nothing  but  business?" 

There  was  a  long  pause.  Then  Enid  said 
thoughtfully : 

"Sometimes  I'm  almost  tempted  to  give  up  hope 
: — and  settle  down  and  be  commonplace,  like  the 
rest  of  the  women.  Never  have  a  dream — or  an 
emotion — or  a  longing." 

"But — even  if   you  wanted  to — mayn't  he — - 

didn't  he " 

205 


ENID 


Jennie  halted,  conquered  in  the  effort  to  ex 
press  a  thought  so  dangerous.  But  Enid  under 
stood.  An  expression  of  fear  fluttered  across  the 
wistful,  charming  little  face — charming  to  every 
one  but  her  husband.  Said  she : 

"That's  why  I  can't  join  your  private  car  party, 

Jen.  I'm  afraid When  we  had  our  big 

quarrel,  he  said  he'd  be  paid  up  and  free  in  about 
two  years.  We  haven't  spoken  of  it  since. 
But " 

"The  two  years  are  about  up?" 

Enid  nodded.  "And  he  may Suppose  he 

found  some  way  to  compel  me  to  divorce  him  and 

take  the  twenty-five  a  week What  would 

I  do?" 

She  looked,  appalled,  at  her  sympathetic  cousin. 
Said  Jennie : 

"He  hasn't  anything  on  you — has  he?" 

Enid  shook  her  head  with  emphasis.  "Not  a 
thing.  I've  seen  to  that  .  .  .  Anyhow,  there 
hasn't  been  a  single  temptation.  Only  men  like 
him  or  much  more  so." 

"It's  been  the  same  way  with  me,"  confessed 
206 


ENID 


Mrs.  Croly.  "In  the  novels  a  man  always  turn 
up — the  right  sort  of  man.  But — the  novels 
aren't  anything  like  life.  They  don't  help  you  to 
live." 

"They  make  it  harder,"  said  Enid.  "It  was 
the  novels  I  read  that  gave  me  most  of  the  ideas 
— that  developed  me  so  I  wasn't  suited  to  be  the 
wife  of  a  man  like  Walter.  Now  I  simply  can't 
narrow  my  horizon  to  his." 

"Isn't  it  frightful?"  said  Jennie.  "All  these 
cravings  that  the  right  sort  of  man  could  satisfy. 
And  no  men  of  the  right  sort!  .  .  .  Yes,  I 
have  met  two  men  in  my  life  that  were  the  right 
sort — or  seemed  to  be.  But  they  had  no  money, 

and  couldn't  make  any.     These  two "     She 

laughed — "they  didn't  want  marriage — didn't 
want  to  have  anything  to  do  with  marriage.  Isn't 
it  frightful?  What  is  the  world  coming  to? 
What's  to  become  of  women?" 

Depressed  silence  for  a  heavy  moment.   Then : 

"Suppose  he  insists  on  the  divorce — what  shall 
I  do?"  asked  Enid,  arrived  now  at  the  point 
where  the  real  cause  of  her  confiding  appeared. 

207 


ENID 


Jennie  was  sympathetic,  sad — and  silent. 

The  genuine  tragedies  of  life  are  three — pov 
erty,  disease  and  bereavement.  All  the  others  are 
simply  vanities  of  bloated  self-exaggeration.  A 
sense  of  humor  will  mitigate  them ;  common  sense 
will  cure  them.  It  was  evidence  of  real  charm  in 
Enid  Prescott,  it  was  a  hopeful  sign  of  the  begin 
ning  of  a  readjustment  of  point  of  view,  that  she 
did  not  now  look  more  deeply  tragic  or  burst  into 
weak  noisy  railings  against  men  and  destiny,  but 
looked  at  her  sad  and  silent  cousin  with  a  gleam 
of  self-mockery  in  her  siren  eyes.  Said  she : 

"You  see,  it's  home  sweet  home  for  me  on 
Thursday." 

Jennie  assented  with  a  reluctant  bend  of  her 
blonde  head. 

During  the  brief  remainder  of  the  visit  the  two 
young  wives,  more  intimate  than  ever  now  that 
each  possessed  the  other's  secret,  lost  no  oppor 
tunity  to  canvass  their  husbands.  As  each  had 
tact  and  good  taste,  she  was  careful  not  to  yield 
to  any  temptation  to  make  original  comment  on 
the  other's  husband  but  to  confine  herself  to  flaw- 

208 


ENID 


picking  at  her  own  bread-winner  and  to  sympa 
thetic  generalities  about  the  other.  With  Jen 
nie's  private  opinions  we  need  not  encumber  our 
selves.  But  as  Enid  listened  to  Jennie  on  Sam, 
she  was  not  always  so  sympathetic  and  assenting 
as  she  seemed.  She  saw  signs  of  Jennie's  being 
too  prejudiced — of  Jennie's  deceiving  herself  as 
to  her  own  righteousness  and  Sam's  invariable 
wrongness — of  Jennie's  almost  lying  about  Sam 
to  make  out  a  better  case  for  herself.  She  even 
began  to  be  disloyal  in  thought  to  Jennie — began 
to  think  better  of  Sam,  to  feel  that  her  original 
impression  of  him  as  a  decent  sort,  ahead  of  the 
run  of  men,  had  not  been  so  far  out  of  the  way. 
"The  trouble  with  Jennie,"  thought  she,  "is  she's 
wholly  wrapped  up  in  herself.  She's  too  vain. 
She  attaches  too  much  importance  to  herself.  She 
wants  to  get  everything  and  give  nothing.  Lazy 
as  she  is,  lazy  as  Sam  lets  her  be,  she  wants  to  be 
still  lazier.  Her  dreams  are  simply  of  laziness 
disguised  as  'higher  life.'  She's  sweet  and  pretty. 
But — there  are  lots  of  sweet  and  pretty  women. 
And  mighty  few  of  them  are  being  taken  care  of 

209 


ENID 


so  well  for  just  being  sweet  and  pretty.  She 
imagines  she  wants  to  be  a  serious  person.  But 
she  really  doesn't.  She  simply  wants  to  be  taken 
seriously  without  doing  anything  to  deserve  it. 
Sam  has  her  sized  up  about  right." 

Something  for  nothing.  The  universe  is 
founded  upon  the  principle  of  blind  selfishness. 
Progress  is  simply  another  name  for  giving  sight 
and  length  of  sight  to  selfishness.  But  progress  is 
slow;  the  stupidity  of  primal  instinct  constantly 
reasserts  itself.  To  get  without  giving — that  is 
the  dream  of  human  nature  in  the  crude.  Men 
live  by  trade  and  commerce,  women  by  love — 
using  the  word  in  its  most  inclusive  sense.  The 
basic  principle  of  each  is  the  same — to  get  some 
thing  for  nothing  if  possible;  if  not,  then  some 
thing  for  as  near  nothing  as  may  be.  To  ex 
change  that  which  has  cost  little  for  that  which 
has  cost  much— and  the  difference  is  the  profit. 
To  fix  up  nothing  so  that  it  looks  like  something 
and  to  get  for  it  a  real  something,  a  real  value — 
that  is  success.  But — to  give  an  honest  value  and 
to  get  an  equal  value  in  return — where  is  the 

210 


ENID 


profit?  The  women,  trading  in  and  upon  love, 
imitate  the  men  trading  in  labor  and  in  goods  real 
or  reputed.  The  women  no  less  than  the  men  in 
herit  the  stupid,  low  instinct  of  something  for 
nothing. 

Thinking — not  on  her  own  case,  but  on  her 
cousin's — Enid  Prescott  saw,  dimly  yet  approach- 
ingly  as  one  sees  in  the  dawn,  not  recedingly  as 
one  sees  in  the  evening  dusk,  that  there  was  the 
man's  side  to  this  quarrel  between  the  sexes. 
When  two  people  have  exchanged  futile  indiscreet 
confidences,  they  separate  in  a  mood  of  dissatis 
faction  with  themselves  and  with  each  other. 
Enid,  on  the  train  Lester-bound,  was  soon  think 
ing  of  her  cousin  as  a  footless,  ungrateful  person, 
who  was  getting  far  better  than  she  deserved. 

"If  /  had  a  man  like  Sam  Croly  to  deal  with " 

There  her  thought  halted  for  the  obvious  reason : 
How  was  she  faring  with  the  man  she  did  have  to 
deal  with?  Before  condemning  Jen,  would  she 
not  do  well  to  show  in  settling  her  own  affairs 
some  of  the  superior  ability  her  criticism  of  Jen 
implied?  True,  her  case  was  different,  was  far 

211 


ENID 


more  difficult.  But — was  not  every  case  "differ 
ent"  and  "far  more  difficult"? 

As  the  distance  from  Wilkesbarre  widened,  and 
the  distance  to  Lester  narrowed,  one  thing  ap 
peared  clearly  to  her:  Both  Jennie  and  she  in 
marrying  had  taken  a  job.  The  idea  might  be 
coarse  and  low;  but  of  what  use  to  discuss  that? 
Of  about  as  much  use  as  to  rail  against  the  qual 
ity  of  light  supplied  by  the  sun.  "Walter  doesn't 

want  what  I  want  to  give By  the  way,  just 

what  do  I  want  to  give?"  She  was  forced  to 
laugh  at  herself — she  who  had  unconsciously  been 
learning  about  herself  as  she  listened  to  Jennie. 
"I  guess  I  don't  want  to  give  much  of  anything. 
IVe  been  thinking  only  about  what  I  want  him  to 
give.  If  I'd  had  good  sense,  if  I'd  been  brought 
up  right,  I'd  not  have  been  thinking  about  that, 
but  about  how  I  was  to  keep  and  to  better  my 
job." 

She  recalled  how  she  had  been  exasperated  by 
servants  who,  seeking  employment,  had  been  able 
to  talk  only  of  how  much  they  were  to  get,  what 
free  time  they  were  to  have,  how  little  of  the 

212 


ENID 


work  they  would  have  to  do,  and  so  on.    Nothing 
\ 

about  trying  to  give  satisfaction,  trying  to  make 
themselves  more  and  more  useful,  more  and  more 
valuable.  Yet  she  herself  had  done  precisely  as 
those  ignorant,  short-sighted  chuckle-heads!  All 
because  the  truth  about  marriage,  about  the  rela 
tions  of  the  sexes,  about  life,  had  been  hidden 
from  her  by  a  systematic  false  education  that  edu 
cated  chiefly  her  vanity,  that  filled  her  with  ridicu 
lous  notions  about  her  own  superior  physical  and 
mental  value,  that  taught  her  to  regard  idle  boot 
less  dreaming  and  hazy,  lazy  aspiration  and  talk 
of  aspiration  as  culture  and  superiority.  Such 
thoughts  as  these  visiting  Enid  now  could  arise 
only  in  a  woman  who  had  been  severely  chastised. 
But  the  matter  had  another  and  more  important 
aspect.  Most  human  beings  take  all  the  chastise 
ments  of  fate  as  our  less  enlightened  ancestors 
took  illness.  They  do  not  consider  that  every 
effect  must  have  a  definite  cause,  that  the  cause 
of  fate's  chastisements  can  usually  be  found  within 
the  victim — that  he  is  simply  reaping  as  he  has 
sown — or  reaping  poisonous  weeds  because  he  has 

213 


ENID 


let  those  weeds  sow  themselves  thick  in  his  life. 
Self-excusing  and  self-pitying  men  and  women 
crouch  down,  suffer  the  blows  to  rain  upon  their 
backs  and  moan  about  the  cruelty  and  injustice  of 
their  sufferings.  Enid  Prescott  was  showing  a 
significant  variation  from  the  type.  She  was  as 
certain  of  her  own  innocence  as  is  the  next  victim 
of  fate.  But  she  had  the  good  sense  to  see  that 
her  innocence  and  the  injustice  of  her  lot  were  not 
going  to  remedy  matters.  Unless  she  bestirred 
herself,  cruel  and  unjust  fate  would  continue  to 
be  cruel  and  unjust.  So,  instead  of  giving  her 
whole  attention  to  railing  and  self  pity  she  gave 
part  of  it  to  thinking  how  to  better  her  condition. 

As  she  traveled  homeward  it  seemed  to  her 
that  her  two  years  of  thinking  had  been  in  vain. 
And  further,  it  seemed  to  her  that  continuing  to 
think  would  be  equally  fruitless. 

She  was  disappointed  that  her  husband  was 
not  at  the  station  to  welcome  her — or  to  make  the 
pretense  of  welcome  for  appearance's  sake.  She 
knew  he  wouldn't  be  there;  still,  her  heart  grew 
heavier  as  she  sought  his  face  in  vain.  When  she 

214 


ENID 


reached  the  house,  she  was  again  disappointed. 
He  was  not  there.  Only  the  servant — Agnes — 
was  there  to  receive  her. 

"Where's  Mr.  Prescott?"  she  asked. 

"He  told  me  to  telephone  if  you  came,"  replied 
Agnes.  "Then  he'll  know  whether  to  come  here 
for  supper  or  keep  on  at  his  father's." 

"Telephone  him,  please,"  said  Enid. 

She  was  less  heavy  hearted,  now  that  she  was 
at  home.  It  was  the  same  modest  cottage  in 
which  she  and  Walter  had  started  their  married 
life — instead  of  the  large  house  she  during  court 
ship  had  assumed  they  would  live  in,  as  became 
the  son  and  daughter-in-law  of  one  of  the  mag 
nates  of  Lester.  It  was  the  same,  yet  not  the 
same.  Up  to  the  break  between  her  and  her  hus 
band,  she  had  given  no  attention  to  the  house. 
She  was  always  hoping  and  expecting  that  Walter 
would  be  shamed  into  providing  a  fitting  place 
for  her.  But  with  the  break,  with  the  realization 
that  he  would  hold  to  the  "mean  and  stingy" 
plan  he  had  made  and  would  not  give  her  the 
things  that  were  her  right  as  a  lady  and  the  wife 

215 


ENID 


of  a  rich  man's  son,  she  had  been  frightened  into 
a  different  course. 

Walter's  view  of  life  was  sordid,  his  notion  of 
woman  and  wife  was  shudderingly  vulgar.  But 
— he  held  the  purse  strings;  and  it  behooved  her 
— so  prudence  and  good  sense  counseled — to  do 
what  she  could  to  make  him  feel  that  she  was 
"on  the  job." 

The  job!  What  a  hideous  distortion  of  the 
romantic  beauty  of  love  and  marriage !  Still — 
he,  of  the  purse  and  the  purse  strings,  looked  on 
the  position  of  wife  as  a  "job."  And  until  she 
should  be  free,  independent  of  him,  she  must  ac 
cept  his  view.  Whenever  there  is  a  murder  in  a 
family,  the  detectives  who  come  to  investigate  first 
look  at  the  domestic  appearances — how  the  house 
is  kept,  whether  there  is  order  or  disorder,  evi 
dence  of  interest  and  content  or  of  neglect  and 
discontent.  Certainly  a  detective,  looking  about 
that  cottage,  would  have  arrived  at  a  verdict 
upon  the  state  of  mind  of  the  inmates  very  wide 
of  the  truth  as  it  appeared  to  Walter  and  Enid. 
The  house  was  perfectly  kept.  On  every  side 

216 


ENID 


there  were  evidences  of  the  thought  and  pains  that 
are  usually  set  down  to  love  alone.  Your  de 
tective  would  have  said:  uThis  is  the  home  of  a 
woman  interested  in  her  house,  interested  in  the 
welfare  of  her  husband,  and  seeking  to  make  him 
comfortable,  and  accomplishing  it  with  unusual 
skill.  This  is  a  happy  home — a  happy  wife,  a 
happy  husband." 

Enid  was  glad  to  be  home,  was  pleased  with 
her  home.  As  she  went  from  room  to  room,  be 
fore  taking  off  her  hat  and  gloves,  she  admired 
her  own  handiwork.  "I've  done  well,  consider 
ing  how  little  he  gave  me  to  do  it  with.  He  cer 
tainly  has  no  cause  to  complain  that  I  haven't 
done  my  share."  Still  in  hat  and  gloves  she  went 
to  the  kitchen  to  see  how  the  preparations  for 
supper  were  coming  on.  She  had  never  seen  a 
sign  of  dissatisfaction  in  Walter's  face,  had  never 
had  a  cross  or  a  criticising  word  from  him  since 
the  break.  But  knowing  that  he  did  not  love  her, 
knowing  that  she  was  in  his  power — unless  she 
was  willing  to  take  a  place  in  a  shop  or  at  some 
sort  of  domestic  service — she  had  never  been  re- 

217 


ENID 


assured  about  him.  And  returning  with  the  sense 
of  her  helplessness  stronger  than  ever,  and  with 
the  fear  of  that  divorce  like  a  frightful  fiend 
treading  upon  her  very  heels,  she  was  in  a  panic 
lest  something  might  go  wrong  that  first  evening. 

She  was  in  dread  of  his  coming;  she  could 
hardly  wait  for  him  to  come.  She  had  a  presenti 
ment  that  the  awful  unsettled  question  was  to  be 
settled  at  once. 

Walter  came  at  six  o'clock — the  supper  hour, 
exactly.  That  two  weeks'  "vacation''  was  the 
first  time  they  had  been  apart — that  is,  had  not 
seen  each  other  every  day.  Thus,  they  looked 
each  at  the  other  with  the  seeing  eye  so  rare  in 
matrimony.  She  found  him  in  the  actuality  much 
better  looking  than  she  had  been  thinking.  It 
even  seemed  to  her  that  he  was  better  looking 
than  she  had  thought  him  when  they  married. 
Then,  she  had  an  "ideal  man";  and  Walter  Pres- 
cott  had  seemed  to  her  far  short  of  that  ideal, 
though  she  had  striven  hard  to  idealize  him. 
Now,  she  was  no  longer  under  the  sway  of  the 
romantic  notions.  The  anxieties,  the  duties  of  the 

218 


ENID 


practical  routine  of  life  had  gotten  her  out  of  the 
romancing  habit.  Looking  at  Walter  as  just  a 
man,  she  was  surprised  to  find  that,  at  least  in 
outward  appearance,  he  compared  most  favorably 
with  the  men  who  walk  about  the  earth,  as  dis 
tinguished  from  the  men  walking  through  novels 
and  poems  and  girl-dreams.  Walter,  on  his  side, 
saw  with  something  of  his  old-time  interest  the 
undeniably  pretty  face,  wistful  and  wide-eyed  and 
wide  of  mouth,  and  the  slim,  nervous  young 
body. 

They  shook  hands  with  a  little  embarrassment. 
"Have  a  good  time?"  said  he. 

"So-so,"  replied  she.  "Everything  all  right  at 
your  mother's?" 

"Oh,  yes.    She  took  good  care  of  me." 

Enid  winced.  That  remark  reminded  her  how 
unimportant  she  was  to  Walter — therefore,  how 
unimportant  in  the  world.  For,  unless  she  was 
necessary  to  him,  she  was  necessary  to  nobody  on 
earth — and  beyond  question  she  was  not  neces 
sary  to  him. 

After  supper  they  went,  as  usual,  to  the  sitting* 
219 


ENID 


room.  He  smoked,  she  worked  at  a  set  of  doilies 
she  was  making  as  a  wedding  present.  During 
those  two  years,  in  that  small  house  in  which  they 
were  at  all  times  jam  up  against  each  other,  they 
had  been  always  upon  the  friendliest  of  terms. 
About  the  only  surface  difference  between  their 
home  life  and  the  life  of  a  happy  young  married 
couple  was  that  they  never  quarreled.  In  all  that 
time  never  once  had  either  brought  up  the  subject 
of  the  estrangement,  though  he  thought  of  it 
often  and  it  was  never  wholly  out  of  her  mind. 
But  that  evening  she  knew  it  was  going  to  come 
up,  in  some  form.  As  she  bent  over  her  work, 
making  the  delicate  stitches,  she  was  waiting  for 
him  to  speak — to  tell  her  that  her  fate  was  set 
tled.  .  .  .  And Beyond  question  she 

was  not  necessary  to  him — or  even  especially  use 
ful.  Not  necessary,  not  even  especially  useful,  to 
any  one  in  the  world. 

She  glanced  furtively  at  him — saw  that  he  was 
lost  in  his  thoughts — if  men  thought  when  they 
were  smoking  those  big  important  looking  cigars 
— or  did  they  simply  look  as  if  they  were  think- 

220 


ENID 


ing,  when  in  fact  they  were  wholly  absorbed  in  the 
service  of  the  cigar?  At  any  rate  he  was  not  ob 
serving  her;  so,  she  could  observe  him  openly  and 
freely.  .  .  .  Yes,  there  was  a  great  deal  of 
character  in  his  face — of  strength,  of  tenacity. 
She  always  had  thought  so.  That  had  reconciled 
her  to  taking  one  so  different  from  her  ideal — 
that,  and  his  money.  Why  was  she  suddenly  tak 
ing  such  a  favorable  view  of  the  man — of  a  life 
— she  had  all  along  been  thinking  she  detested? 
Because  she  was  afraid  she  was  about  to  lose  the 
man,  to  be  thrust  out  of  the  life,  into  an  alterna 
tive  that  was  repellent  in  every  way. 

She  was  gazing  wistfully  at  him.  Our  prime 
necessity — to  make  our  bodies  comfortable — is 
material.  Hence,  the  material  ever  dominates 
us,  lies  at  the  base  of  our  actions.  The  wise 
mother,  wishing  her  child  to  love  her,  pursues  the 
same  course  as  the  master  of  a  new  dog  and  sees 
to  it  that  no  one  but  herself  ever  gives  the  child 
food.  Enid's  fascinating  little  face  was  wistful 
as  she  looked  at  the  man  who  held  her  destiny  in 
his  hands.  She  was  ashamed  of  her  lack  of  pride. 

221 


ENID 


She  would  not  have  confessed  her  secret  thoughts 
to  any  one  in  the  world.  But  she  would  have 
been  grateful  for  a  friendly  look  from  him. 

He  stirred — he  was  coming  out  of  his  abstrac 
tion.  She  glanced  hastily  down  at  her  work. 
Said  he : 

"Well— I  think  I'll  go  to  bed.  I've  had  a  hard 
day." 

As  he  rose,  her  heart  seemed  to  stand  still. 
For,  she  all  at  once  felt  that  she  was  missing  a 
chance — the  chance.  What  was  the  important 
thing?  To  make  up  with  him  if  possible — and  as 
far  as  he  was  willing.  If  he  would  not  make  up, 
then  to  put  him  in  a  position  in  which  he  could 
not  send  her  away  with  twenty-five  dollars  a  week. 
Obviously  this  was  the  sensible,  the  immediate 
thing.  Pride  sneered;  but  would  pride  pay  bills? 
In  two  years  pride — and  chance — and  aspiration 
— and  all  the  other  gods  had  been  appealed  to  in 
vain.  She  must  deal  with  her  own  peculiar  des 
tiny  in  the  only  way  it  would  consent  to  dealing. 
She  ought  to  be  glad  he  wasn't  positively  repulsive 
to  her — that  "making  the  best  of  it"  wouldn't  be 

222 


ENID 


such  a  horrible  humiliation,  after  all.  And  now 
was  the  time — now — this  evening  of  the  home 
coming  when  her  instinct  told  her  he  was  unusually 
well  disposed  toward  her. 

She  glanced  up  at  him.  She  could  make  her 
smile  singularly  sweet  when  she  chose.  It  had 
never  been  sweeter.  Said  she : 

"You  don't  look  tired.  But  then  you  are  tre 
mendously  strong.  You're  carrying  the  whole 
burden  of  the  factory  now — aren't  you?" 

"I  like  it,"  said  he.  "Father  lets  me  alone. 
He'll  retire  soon." 

Her  heart  sank;  but  she  hid  it.    She  asked: 

"He  and  your  mother'll  be  taking  that  trip 
round  the  world,  perhaps?" 

"That's  just  talk,"  answered  he.  "Mother 
couldn't  go.  Neither  would  father,  though  he 
pretends  it's  she  that  keeps  him.  But  they  may 
do  the  Far  West.  .  .  .  Mother  wants  us  to 
live  in  the  house  while  they're  gone." 

She  made  a  wry  face — and  it  was  not  pre 
tense.  "We're  so  comfortable  here,"  said  she. 

He  glanced  round.  "Yes,  it  is  comfortable," 
223 


ENID 


he  admitted.  "I  didn't  realize  how  comfortable 
we  were  until  I  went  back  home  for  these  last  two 
weeks."  He  looked  at  her  with  a  friendly  em 
barrassed  smile.  "You  certainly  have  learned 
your  business." 

She  beamed. 

He,  still  more  awkwardly:  "I  haven't  been 
quite  fair  with  you.  My  salary  was  raised  a  year 
ago — to  five  thousand  a  year.  I  haven't  been 
giving  you  your  share." 

She  looked  amused.  "Oh,  I've  had  plenty. 
And  those  debts  must  be  paid." 

He  colored  violently,  was  plainly  much  dis 
turbed  by  this  startling  about-face.  "You've 
changed  your  mind  about  that,  then?"  said  he, 
reseating  himself  in  his  embarrassment. 

"One  changes  as  one  grows  older — and  learns," 
replied  she.  It  amazed  her  to  find  herself  mov 
ing  along  the  highway  of  hypocrisy  with  such  a 
sure  and  swift  foot.  "I  was  a  foolish  girl.  You 
should  have  had  better  sense  than  to  have  taken 
me  seriously  then." 

"The  debts  are  paid,"  he  confessed  with  boy- 
224 


ENID 


ish  shamefacedness.  "Father  canceled  them  a 
year  ago." 

The  blood  was  buzzing  in  her  ears.  Then  she 
had  been  in  imminent  danger  a  whole  year ! 
Why  hadn't  he  told  her — and  settled  the  open  ac 
count  between  them?  Perhaps  because  his  father 
and  mother  were  set  against  divorce.  Yes — that 
was  beyond  doubt  the  reason,  the  only  reason. 
And  she  frowned  down  the  suggestion  woman's 
vanity  was  prompt  to  make. 

He  was  explaining: 

"I  didn't  care  to  open  the  subject  again,  as  I 
still  wasn't  in  a  position  to  settle  things.  You 
know,  father  and  mother  are  hopelessly  old-fash 
ioned  about  divorce.  Father  made  me  promise 
I'd  not  move  until  you  did." 

He  was  looking  at  her  expectantly.  She  said 
— pale  but  apparently  calm : 

"Really — I've  not  been  thinking  about  it." 

"I'm  glad,"  said  he.  "I  was  afraid  you  were 
worrying.  7  had  my  business  to  occupy  me." 

She  laughed — and  no  one  could  have  guessed 
how  nervous  she  was.  "I've  had  my  business, 

225 


ENID 


too,"  said  she.  "The  house  to  look  after — and 
clothes  to  make — and  all  sorts  of  odds  and  ends. 
My  life's  been  pretty  full." 

"I  suppose,"  said  he  reflectively,  "that's  why 
we've  jogged  along  so  comfortably.  Both  of  us 
have  had  about  all  we  could  find  time  for." 

Now  was  her  chance — now  or  never.  She  be 
came  radiant.  "I  think  we  have  been  pretty  good 
friends,"  said  she  with  a  look  and  a  smile  he  could 
interpret  as  he  liked. 

He  nodded.  "We're  a  lot  more  successful  as 
friends  than  as  husband  and  wife." 

She  sank  to  woman's  deepest  sweep  of  humilia 
tion — with  the  manner  of  a  proud,  frank,  good- 
comrade.  She  said: 

"What  a  little  idiot  I  was !  How  patient  you 
were  with  me !" 

He  was  not  to  be  outdone  in  generosity.  "I 
wasn't  as  decent  as  I  might  have  been.  I  lost  my 

temper  and  said  a  lot  of  things They  were 

true  enough,  but  I  ought  to  have  kept  them  to 
myself."  He  laughed,  went  on  with  an  apolo 
getic  look.  "You  did  rile  me,  with  your  cool  as- 

226 


ENID 


sumption  that  I  was  crazy  about  you  when,  in 
fact,  I  was  as  much  disappointed  in  married  life 
as  you  were." 

She  took  her  up-starting  and  bristling  vanity  by 
the  scruff  and  flung  it  back  into  its  cage  and 
slammed  the  door  on  it.  She  said  sweetly: 

"I  guess  it  was  an  instinct  that  you  were  disap 
pointed  that  set  me  going." 

He  looked  at  her  thoughtfully.  "You  cer 
tainly  have  changed,"  was  his  verdict. 

"You  couldn't  expect  me  to  stand  still." 

"Most  women  do." 

"No,  they  go  backward,"  corrected  she.  "But" 
— smiling  brightly  at  him — "you  didn't  give  me 
the  chance.  You'll  not  believe  it,  Walt,  but  I'm 
grateful  to  you.  You  made  me  wake  up." 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  rose.  "Well — 
it's  me  for  bed.  I'm  glad  you've  forgiven  me." 

She  was  desperate.    She  said  pensively: 

"Good  night.  What  a  pity  it  is  that  people 
don't  start  right — can't  start  right  because  they 
don't  know." 

"Oh — there's  no  use  in  regret,"  said  he  sooth- 
227 


ENID 


ingly.      " We'll   straighten  things  out,    and  next 
time  we'll  both  know  what  we're  about.'7 

His  tone  and  manner  were  discouraging.  She 
did  not  dare  let  herself  be  discouraged.  She  had 
to  hope — and  her  hope  was  that  he  was  using  this 
indifferent  manner  to  conceal  a  relenting  toward 
her.  She  rose  and  drew  near  him.  She  posed 
her  slim  nervous  young  body  before  him  and 
gazed  with  wistful  eyes,  the  fascinating  wide 
mouth  at  a  particularly  becoming  and  inviting 
angle.  She  held  out  her  hand. 

"I  want  to  thank  you — and  to  ask  you  to  for 
give  me,"  she  said.  "And  I  am  glad  to  be — 
home!" 

Her  eyes  filled.  There  was  a  momentary  re 
sponse  in  his  eyes.  She  thought  he  was  about  to 
kiss  her.  But  the  look  in  his  eyes  changed  from 
tender  to  quizzical,  to  laughing,  and  he  said  with 
an  amused  shake  of  the  head  as  he  took  and 
dropped  her  hand: 

"You  and  Jen  Croly  must  have  had  a  serious 
talk  on  the  subject  of  the  care  and  feeding  of  hus 
bands." 

228 


ENID 


She  hid  her  angry  confusion,  said  merrily : 
"We  did,  indeed.    That's  why  I'm  so  meek." 
Audacious    frankness    won.      The    artifice    of 
abandoning  artifice  snatched  victory  from  the  claw 
of  defeat.    He  laughed  and  kissed  her. 

"You're  a  clever  girl,"  said  he,  in  his  voice? 
that  note  of  male  weakness  for  attractive  female 
for  which  women  listen,  as  the  general  watches 
the  enemy's  battlements   for  the   flutter  of   the 
white  flag. 

Eight  months  later.  The  elder  Prescott  and 
his  wife  had  bought  in  Pasadena,  and  had  set 
tled  there  for  the  rest  of  their  lives.  The  younger 
Prescott  and  his  wife  had  moved  into  the  big 
house.  Sam  Croly  was  dead  of  pneumonia — and 
his  crepe-swathed  contented  widow  was  visiting 
Cousin  Enid.  She  soon  disclosed  the  chief  object 
of  her  visit.  Said  she : 

"I  want  to  go  abroad — for  a  long  stay.  And 
you  are  coming  with  me,  Enid." 

Enid  shook  her  head  sadly.  "No — I  must 
stick  to  my  job." 

229 


ENID 


"You  needn't  ever  think  of  it  again,"  cried  Jen 
nie.  "Sam  left  me  very  well  off.  The  insurance 
alone  was  enough  to  live  on,  and  there  were 
stocks  and  bonds."  She  wiped  her  eyes.  "Ah, 
he  was  such  a  smart  fellow!  .  .  .  And  now 
I  want  you  to  be  free,  too.  I'll  make  any  ar 
rangement  you  like.  And  you'll  be  sure  to  meet 
a  sympathetic  man  abroad." 

Enid  sighed.    "No — I  must  stay  here." 

"But  I  can't  bear  to  think  of  you  as  unhappy." 

"Oh,  I'm  not — not  miserable,  dear,"  replied 
Enid  with  a  tranquility  that  was  convincing. 
"After  I  left  you  I  decided  to  stop — stop  admir 
ing  and  longing  for  the  two  birds  in  the  bush  and 
to  see  what  I  could  do  with  the  bird  in  the  hand." 

Jennie  kissed  her  tenderly.  "Poor  child!"  she 
said.  "How  you  must  have  suffered." 

"Yes,  I  was  pretty  nervous  until  I  had  a  good 
hold  on  the  bird  in  my  hand,"  replied  Enid  prac 
tically.  "But — since  then — well,  it's  astonishing 
how  you  can  grow  to  like  what  you've  got  to 
like." 

"Never !"  cried  Jennie.  "We  women  may  sub- 
230 


ENID 


mit,  but  we  hate.  You  can't  hide  yourself  from 
me,  dear.  I  know  what  you  think  in  your  secret 
heart.  And  you  must  come  with  me." 

"You're  mistaken,  Jen,"  replied  Enid  earnestly. 
"Honestly,  you  are.  I  don't  hate  him.  In  fact, 
I  like  him." 

Jennie  shook  her  head,  unconvinced.  She  knew 
women,  and  no  woman  of  spirit 

"Yes — like  him  tremendously,"  interrupted 
Enid.  "IVe  grown  hopelessly  practical,  Jen. 
I'm  comfortable,  and  nothing  could  induce  me  to 
take  chances  again." 

"You  don't  mean  to  pretend  that  you  love 
him!"  exclaimed  the  young  widow,  a  picture  of 
blonde  amazement  framed  in  crinkled  becoming 
black. 

"Not  what  you'd  call  love,  perhaps — or  what 
I'd  have  called  love  in  my  poetry  and  novel  days," 
said  Enid,  opening  her  work  basket  and  taking 
out  some  sewing.  "But — I'm  contented.  I  don't 
want  anything  different."  She  smiled  peculiarly. 
"And  if  any  one  tried  to  take  him  away  from 

me " 

231 


ENID 


She  left  the  sentence  unfinished.  There  was  in 
her  vigorous  nod  a  suggestion  of  fierce  battle — 
battle  to  the  death.  Jennie  gazed  sorrowfully  at 
that  exterior  of  mystery  and  allure  wasted  upon 
a  stove  manufacturer  of  Lester,  Pa.,  upon  that 
interior  once  adorned  with  poetry  and  romance, 
now  soberly  furnished  like  a  substantial  domestic 
sitting-room.  Abruptly  she  said: 

"Why,  Enid — what's  that  queer  little  thing 
you're  working  on?" 

Enid  laughed  and  blushed  and  held  it  up  de 
fiantly. 


232 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

I 

THAT  year  it  was  the  fad  to  be  "quiet"; 
also  Mrs.  Bristow  always  had  ab 
horred  ostentation.  So,  early  in 
January  she  sent  out  about  seven  hundred  infor 
mal  little  notes  in  her  secretary's  close  imitation 
of  her  handwriting:  "We'll  be  glad  if  you'll  dine 
with  us  at  Sherry's  on  February  i6th  at  eight 
o'clock.  There'll  be  dancing  afterward.  Hoping 
you  will  come,  sincerely  yours,  Alice  Bristow." 
Then  she  began  to  make  ready  for  the  twelve  or 
fifteen  hundred  people  who  would  surely  accept. 

She  took  half  the  ground  floor  at  Sherry's  and 
the  whole  of  the  second  floor.  She  moved  into  an 
apartment  on  the  third  floor  four  days  before  the 
ball — leaving  her  house  in  East  Sixty-seventh 
Street  in  charge  of  the  housekeeper  and  directing 
her  husband  to  find  everything  except  lodging  and 

235 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

breakfast  at  his  club  or  downtown.  She  assem 
bled  an  army  of  florists  and  decorators  and  kept 
them  at  work  day  and  night.  She  walled  and 
ceilinged  Sherry's  ballroom  with  white  roses  and 
white  brocaded  silk;  she  made  ante-rooms  and 
stairways  into  bowers  and  lanes  of  blooming 
white  rose  bushes;  she  transformed  the  lower 
rooms,  where  dinner  and  supper  were  to  be 
served,  into  a  huge  white  rose  garden  with  rustic 
pavilions  on  banks  of  moss,  with  graveled  walks 
winding  among  tables  set  upon  turf,  with  a  brook 
skurrying  under  foot-bridges  and  now  tumbling  in 
a  cascade,  now  bursting  in  a  fountain.  She  hid 
cages  of  songbirds  among  the  branches  of  trans 
planted  trees.  She  ordered  articles  of  gold  and 
silver  and  semi-precious  stones,  of  costly  lace  and 
hand-painted  silk  for  cotillon  favors.  She  en 
gaged  an  orchestra  for  upstairs,  a  gypsy  band  for 
downstairs.  And  to  perform  upon  a  rustic  stage 
in  the  midst  of  the  garden  during  dinner  and  sup 
per  she  hired  men  singers  and  women  singers, 
jesters  and  tumblers  and  dancers  and  players  upon 
strange  instruments. 

236 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 


At  a  quarter  past  eight  on  the  evening  of  the 
sixteenth  she  descended  from  her  apartment  for 
a  final  look  around  and  a  final  disposition  of  her 
forces  before  stationing  herself  in  the  big  recep 
tion  room  to  receive  that  part  of  New  York  which 
she  and  her  friends  meant  when  they  said  "every 
body."  She  was  deeply  rouged,  but  it  did  not  hide 
the  hollowness  of  her  cheeks,  the  weariness  of  her 
eyes.  Behind  her  at  a  respectful  distance  came 
her  butler,  Tremlett.  As  she  appeared  at  the 
turn  of  the  stairway,  a  half  dozen  young  men  ad 
vanced  to  meet  her — the  young  men  of  her 
"train."  They,  too,  had  taken  rooms  at  Sherry's; 
and  they  had  acted  as  her  aides-de-camp.  They 
had  dressed  early,  to  be  ready  when  she  should 
appear.  Surrounded  by  this  "train"  and  attended, 
at  a  respectful  distance,  by  her  butler  and  several 
of  Sherry's  principal  men,  she  made  the  tour. 
Her  small,  well-shaped  head  was  nodding  this 
way  and  that;  her  long,  slender  arms — in  neck  and 
arms  she  was  still  like  a  young  woman — were 
constantly  moving  to  the  horizontal  to  point  out 
some  small  defect  which  must  be  remedied;  and 

237 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 


her  clear,  resolute  voice  was  heard  in  inces 
sant  criticism  and  command.  She  returned 
alone  to  the  reception  room;  her  "train"  and 
the  servants  were  all  busy  carrying  out  her 
last  orders. 

It  was  half  past  eight  and  no  one  had  come; 
in  the  dressing  rooms  were  gathered  a  few  who 
had  not  heard  or  had  not  believed  the  warning 
that  had  gone  round  that  it  was  to  be  a  very  late 
affair.  Just  as  Downey,  the  first  of  her  "train" 
to  finish  his  task,  came  up,  breathing  heavily  and 
wiping  the  sweat  from  his  face  with  a  handker 
chief  as  big  as  himself,  her  restless,  searching 
eyes  caught  a  mere  glimpse  of  a  skirt  at  the  far 
end  of  the  long  hallway,  near  the  women's  dress 
ing  rooms. 

"There's  Georgina !"  she  said.  "Go  and  bring 
her  to  me." 

Downey  darted  along  the  hallway  and  pres 
ently  returned,  looking  unimportant  beside  the 
taller,  obviously  nervous  young  girl  he  was  escort 
ing.  Georgina  came  to  a  standstill  about  two 
yards  from  the  small,  erect  figure  of  her  mother, 

238 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 


draped  in  fashionable  scantiness  and  simplicity, 
and  blazing  with  jewels. 

"Oh,  Mother!  Mother!"  exclaimed  the  girl. 
And  her  eyes  sparkled  and  her  breath  came 
quickly  and  the  color  spread  in  a  soft  flush  over 
her  delicate,  smooth  skin. 

"And  it's  all  for  me.    What  can  I  say?" 

Mrs.  Bristow  looked  at  her  daughter — the  look 
of  one  who  never  fails  to  see  a  fault  if  fault 
there  be. 

"Say  anything  you  please,  my  dear,"  she  re 
plied.  "But  don't  do  anything — at  least  not  to 
me.  It  took  Clarice  two  awful  hours  to  put  me 
together,  not  to  speak  of  the  masseuse.  And  you 
could  undo  it  all  in  one  second." 

Georgina  laughed,  more  because  she  was  so 
young  and  well  and  happy  than  at  her  mother's 
good-natured  cautioning  against  "demonstra 
tions."  Georgina  had  led  the  most  secluded  of 
lives.  Of  her  eighteen  years  the  first  twelve  had 
been  spent  in  the  country,  always  guarded  by  a 
governess.  She  even  knew  her  brother,  older 
than  herself,  only  in  a  distant,  stiff  sort  of  way. 

239 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

At  thirteen  she  had  gone  to  the  convent  and  had 
stayed  there,  with  brief,  formal  visits  home  twice 
a  year,  until  a  month  before  this,  her  coming-out 
ball. 

"Georgina  shall  be  innocent,"  Mrs.  Bristow 
had  insisted.  She  herself  had  been  brought  up 
in  the  American  fashion.  But,  while  she  did  not 
think  badly  of  the  results  in  her  case,  she  attrib 
uted  her  escape  to  her  own  superiority,  not  to 
any  merits  in  the  system — that  she  regarded  as 
wholly  pernicious,  to  say  nothing  of  its  vulgarity. 
"I  shall  take  no  chances,"  she  had  declared. 
"Georgina  shall  know,  hear,  see,  think  nothing 
but  what  is  pure  and  good.  Then,  when  she  faces 
the  facts  of  life,  she  will  be  so  firmly  established 
in  the  right  that  wrong  will  be  impossible." 

And  she  had  been  delighted  when  her  daughter, 
in  the  third  year  at  the  convent,  developed  a  pas 
sionate  religious  enthusiasm  and  talked  of  "tak 
ing  the  veil."  Mr.  Bristow  had  no  time  to  spare 
from  downtown  even  for  his  wife;  the  children 
he  left  entirely  to  her.  But  this  talk  of  uthe  veil" 
made  him  nervous,  and  he  ventured  to  suggest  to 

240 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

his  wife  that  it  might  end  in  more  than  "just 
talk"  and  "an  emotional  girl's  taking  the  nearest 
,'  outlet  for  a  sentimentalism  which  the  first  breath 
of  real  life  will  kill."  Mrs.  Bristow  had  waved 
him  aside — the  sisters  wouldn't  dare  encourage 
the  girl  beyond  a  certain  point;  if  they  did,  how 
would  a  child  of  hers  disobey  her  whom  no  one 
disobeyed,  not  even  impudent  servants?  But 
Georgina's  father  was  not  wholly  satisfied.  At 
the  first  opportunity  he  could  conveniently  make, 
he  privately  led  her,  his  only  daughter,  aside  and 
cross-examined  her  with  the  shrewdness  that  had 
graduated  him  from  a  corporation  lawyer  into  a 
corporation  owner.  Georgina  assured  him  that 
her  religious  ideal  was  not  for  seclusion  but  for 
action. 

"I  want  to  live  in  the  world,"  she  said  with 
kindling  eyes.  "I  want  to  try  to  be  useful  and 
to  do  all  I  can  to  make  it  less  full  of  sorrow  and 
pain." 

Mr.  Bristow  nodded  approval  of  this;  and 
Georgina  was  so  absorbed  in  her  romantic  vague, 
purely  theoretical,  ideas  of  "sorrow  and  pain" 

241 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

that  she  did  not  note  the  queer  gleam  in  his  eyes. 
Toward  his  daughter's  young  enthusiasm  he  was 
tender  where  toward  another's  he  would  have 
been  frankly  cynical — for,  in  his  fifty  years'  ex 
perience  of  dollar  worshippers  he  had  found 
nothing  that  encouraged  him  to  try  to  get  warmth 
from  any  fire  of  reform.  "The  world's  a  pretty 
good  world,  Georgie,"  he  said,  "a  pretty  com 
fortable,  cheerful  world,  if  you  don't  irritate  it, 
and  don't  expect  anything  of  it." 

On  this  February  sixteenth,  with  the  music 
thrilling,  with  the  odors  of  flowers  and  of  per 
fumes  stronger  if  less  natural  making  the  air 
sensuous,  with  the  women  in  beautiful  jewels  and 
dresses,  with  the  men,  seen  hazily  in  the  mass, 
handsome  and  manly,  with  smiles  and  pleasure 
everywhere,  with  heartaches  and  toil  and  storm 
like  phantoms  of  a  vanished  dream — on  this  night 
Georgina  did  not  once  think  of  that  romantic 
"sorrow  and  pain"  she  was  romantically  to  devote 
her  life  to  lightening.  "It  is  so  beautiful  to  live, 
so  wonderful!"  she  thought  again  and  again  as 
she  laughed  and  danced  and  chattered  and  flitted 

242 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 


about  in  gauzy  white  with  bare  rosy  shoulders 
glistening  and  a  face  that  suggested  her  own  fa 
vorite  white  roses  gleaming  under  its  simple 
gorgeous  crown  of  auburn  hair. 

She  was,  indeed,  a  fascinating  expression  of  life 
— not  very  tall,  yet  above  the  medium  height ;  the 
well  advanced  beginnings  of  a  graceful  figure; 
features  not  too  regular  for  feeling  nor  too  ir 
regular  for  the  harmonies  of  those  outgivings  of 
the  mind  and  heart  that  beautify  faces  as  well  as 
character.  And  her  eyes,  clear  and  innocent, 
seemed  to  be  finding  in  her  surroundings  an  es 
sence  of  nobility  so  delicate  and  fine  that  it  could 
not  be  felt  by  the  blunter  coarsened  sense  of  the 
sophisticated. 

Her  partner  had  gone  to  get  her  a  glass  of 
water.  The  dinner,  the  cotillon,  the  supper  were 
over;  most  of  the  older  people  were  gone — all,  in 
fact,  except  those  who  were  ruled  by  their  daugh 
ters  or  who  had  daughters  not  easy  to  marry  off 
and  so  not  to  be  removed  from  the  display  while 
there  was  a  chance  of  attracting  a  customer. 
Georgina,  sitting  apart,  was  glad  to  be  alone  for 

243 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

a  moment  that  she  might  enjoy  the  more  keenly, 
without  the  distraction  of  having  to  talk  and  to 
listen.  Her  thoughts  were  drifting  in  vague  ec 
stasy  upon  the  billows  of  waltz  music  when  she 
became  conscious  that  some  definite  person  was 
near-by,  was  just  in  front  of  her,  was  watching 
her  intently. 

She  gathered  herself  together.  She  did  not 
like  the  look — just  why  she  could  not  have  said. 
When  a  child  sees  that  sort  of  look  in  the  eyes 
of  a  grown  person  watching  it  at  play,  it  stops 
playing  and  feels  somehow  rebuked  for  being 
able  to  enjoy  such  folly.  Yet  it  wasn't  a  look  of 
pity,  or  of  amusement  or  of  condescension.  As 
she  was  noting  it  and  before  she  had  time  to  be 
made  uncomfortable  by  it,  it  gave  place  to  another 
expression,  one  which  stirred  in  her  the  instinct 
that  makes  a  child,  after  a  glance,  go  straight  to 
a  stranger  and  court  him.  She  was  smiling  ex 
pectantly  up  at  a  tallish,  slender  man,  with  a  good 
deal  of  gray  in  his  dark  hair  and  some  in  his  nar 
row  dark  mustache,  with  strength  in  his  frame 
and  the  habit  of  luxurious  outdoor  life  in  his  coin- 

244 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

plexion — polo  and  hunting  and  shooting  and 
yachts.  Her  partner  came  with  the  water;  beside 
this  curiously  magnetic  stranger  he  seemed  awk 
ward  and  ill-dressed.  And  the  first  shadow  came 
upon  Georgina's  evening — she  was  for  the  first 
time  discriminating  among  her  sensations,  was 
seeing  the  contrasts  in  the  crowd.  Without  effort 
and  without  exertion,  neither  by  saying  nor  by 
doing  nor  by  looking,  but  just  by  simply  being, 
this  man  had  lowered  the  others,  had  exalted  him 
self,  and  it  was  at  their  expense.  She  noticed 
that  her  partner  was  almost  deferential  toward 
"Mr.  Fenton,"  that  several  men  in  a  near-by 
group  were  watching  him  furtively  with  admiring 
envy. 

"I  came  to  say  good  night,"  he  said,  putting  out 
his  hand  with  a  slight  bow  that  yet  seemed  to  her 
somehow  to  confer  a  distinction  upon  her.  "Good 
night  to  Mademoiselle  White  Rose,  and  to  tell 
her  that  her  mother  wishes  to  see  her — she's 
over  there  behind  that  wide  man  with  the  nar 
row  head."  And  he  bowed  again  and  was 
gone. 

245 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

She  had  been  thinking  of  things — of  crowds 
and  lights  and  perfumes  and  music  and  partners 
and  favors.  Now  all  these  merged  into  back 
ground  for  a  person — a  personality.  "Who  is 
Mr.  Fenton?"  she  asked,  as  she  went  with  her 
partner  toward  her  mother. 

"Oh — he's "  The  young  man  looked 

blank.  Everybody  knew  about  Fenton.  Nobody 
had  ever  been  called  on  to  define  him.  "Fenton?" 
he  went  on.  "Oh,  he's— he's  all  right." 

Georgina's  look  caused  him  to  fear  he  had  not 
made  himself  quite  clear. 

"He's  been  everywhere  and  done  everything," 
he  explained.  "He — he — well,  he  'knows  how.' 
Whether  it's  breaking  hearts  or  horses,  buying 
pictures  or  clothes — or  whatever  it  is — he  'knows 
how.'  He's — well,  he's — Fenton." 

"Oh,"  said  Georgina.     "Oh,  yes." 

When  she  joined  her  mother's  group  they  were 
talking  of  Fenton.  The  "wide  man  with  the  nar 
row  head"  was  chattering  from  a  wide  mouth: 
"And  Fenton  accepted  her  brother's  challenge, 
they  say,  and  of  course  he  had  the  poor  Belgian 

246 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 


at  his  mercy.  But  he  only  pricked  him  in  the 
sword-wrist — just  to  end  the  duel." 

"Pm  sure  Fenton  cared  nothing  about  her," 
said  Mrs.  Bristow.  "Everybody  knows  that 
he "  She  caught  sight  of  her  daughter  listen 
ing  with  frank  thirstiness.  "I  detest  scandal,  any 
way/'  she  added.  "Women  have  been  trying  to 
make  a  fool  of  Fenton  ever  since  he  went  into 
trousers,  and  theyVe  only  succeeded  in  making 
him  the  wariest  bachelor  in  New  York.  Geor- 
gina,  one  more  dance,  just  one — then  you  must  go 
— must  take  your  father  home.  He's  been 
blighting  the  ball  with  his  yawns." 

The  wide  man  asked  for  that  last  dance.  As 
he  bore  her  away  she  said:  "Who  is  Mr.  Fen 
ton?" 

"Fenton?    Why,  he's— all  right." 

"So  I've  heard,"  said  Georgina.  "But  what 
does  that  mean?" 

The  wide  man  grinned  in  a  gossip's  familiar, 
insinuating  way.  "Oh,  you're  too  young  to  know, 
as  the  song  says." 

She  did  not  urge  him  to  explain,  as  he  ob- 
247 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

viously  hoped  she  would.  It  was  five  o'clock. 
The  roses  were  faded  or  fading;  the  floors  were 
strewn  with  fallen  and  torn  and  stained  white 
petals.  Most  of  the  remaining  men  and  a  few  of 
the  women  had  been  too  often  to  the  supper  room. 
Their  laughter,  their  familiarities  with  one  an 
other  jarred  upon  Georgina's  tired  nerves.  The 
musicians  were  playing  wearily  and  only  the  very 
young  girls  like  herself  looked  fresh  and  bright — 
they  merely  by  contrast  with  the  older  women. 
Her  mother's  eyes  were  black  circled  and  her 
cheeks  were  haggard.  Georgina  was  glad  to  go. 
As  she  fell  asleep,  with  the  music  still  beating 
in  her  nerves,  she  was  thinking  of  Fenton,  of  the 
fascinating  mystery  of  him.  "Who  is  Mr.  Fen- 
ton?"  she  wondered.  "And  what  is  it  about  him 
that  makes  me  think  of  him  as  the  only  person 
who  was  at  my  ball?" 


248 


II 

EARLY  in  May,  Fenton  went  up  to  the 
Carnarvons'  on  the  Hudson;  and  one 
afternoon  a  few  days  later  he  set  out 
alone  in  a  small  automobile  to  call  at  the  Bris- 
tows',  twenty  miles  away.  When  he  had  been 
going  about  half  an  hour  he  saw  in  a  narrow 
stretch  of  the  road  ahead  of  him  a  young  woman 
with  a  bulldog  at  her  heels.  He  slowed  down  to 
well  within  the  legal  speed  limit  and  signaled.  The 
young  woman  stopped  and  stood  at  the  roadside. 
The  dog  dropped  as  if  he  had  been  shot  and  dis 
posed  himself  in  the  most  restful  posture  possible 
that  he  might  take  the  fullest  advantage  of  the 
halt.  But  at  sight  of  Fenton  he  rose,  twitching 
his  tightly  curled  tail  excitedly  and  spreading  over 
his  hideous,  friendly  countenance  a  look  of  frantic 
delight. 

"That's    Bristow's    'Monseigneur,' "    thought 
Fenton,  as  he  went  by. 

249 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 


The  girl  was  bowing  to  him,  and  he  bowed  in 
return  without  recognizing  her.  "Some  one  stop 
ping  with  them,n  he  thought.  Then  he  remem 
bered:  "Yes— it's  Mrs.  Bristow's  girl."  He  had 
noted  the  weariness  of  the  dog  and  on  impulse  he 
stopped  his  auto,  turned  it  and  went  back.  When 
he  was  abreast  of  her  and  her  dog,  he  stopped 
again.  "How  d'ye  do,  Miss  Bristow,"  he  said. 
"Can't  I  give  you  a  lift?  You're  at  least  seven 
miles  from  home." 

"Not  'cross  country/'  she  replied  with  a  bright 
flush  and  a  stammer  of  embarrassment.  "I  think 
— I'll  just — just  walk  home,  thank  you." 

"But  'Mons'  " — he  persisted,  convinced  that 
only  excessive  shyness  kept  her  from  accepting. 

At  sound  of  the  name  by  which  every  one  who 
knew  him  well  called  him,  "Mons"  snorted  joy 
fully  and  with  an  awkward  scrambling  leap  seated 
himself  in  the  auto  in  front  of  the  vacant  seat. 
Thence  he  looked  at  his  mistress,  as  if  to  say, 
"You  may  be  as  foolish  as  ever  you  like.  But 
I'm  going  to  do  the  sensible  thing." 

"Poor  'Mons' !"  said  the  girl,  reaching  over  and 
250 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

rubbing  her  hand  up  his  short,  squeezed-in  face. 
"I  ought  to  be  ashamed  to  drag  you  so  far  whea 
it's  so  hard  for  you  to  breathe." 

Fenton  descended  from  the  auto,  went  round 
and  stood  beside  her.  "I'm  on  my  way  to  your 
place,"  he  said,  shaking  hands  with  her.  "You 
see,  'Mons'  has  decided  your  destiny  for  you. 
Surely  you  wouldn't  trifle  with  fate." 

"I  might — if  I  weren't  tired,"  replied  Geor- 
gina,  and  she  stepped  into  the  seat  beside  his. 

They  were  off  and  she  was  trembling  so  that 
she  steadied  one  of  her  bare  brown  hands  with 
the  other.  She  was  in  a  whirl  of  amazement  that 
her  dream  had  thus  come  true.  For,  while  she 
had  not  seen  him  in  the  eleven  weeks  since  the 
ball,  she  had  thought  of  him  more  and  more. 
Wherever  she  had  gone,  she  had  heard  of  him — 
not  always,  or  even  usually,  things  she  thought 
she  approved  of,  but  always  things  that  increased 
his  mystery  and  his  charm.  Many  women  had 
loved  him  and  he — well,  he  had  at  least  let  them. 
That  was  a  disappointment;  her  ideal  man,  so 
she  told  herself,  was  he  who  waited  in  purity  and 

251 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

patience  for  the  one  woman.  Still,  wasn't  there 
something  to  be  said  for  the  man  who,  when  he 
chose  the  one  woman,  chose  her  with  the  open 
eyes  of  experience?  A  wicked,  unwomanly 
thought,  Georgina  reproached  herself,  but  she 
couldn't  help  thinking  it. 

She  was  watching  him  steadily  and  wondering 
about  those  vague  "others"  now — it  wasn't 
strange  that  they  had  liked  that  "different"  air, 
that  look  of  strength  through  the  shoulders  and 
neck,  emphasized  by  the  manly  profile  with  plenty 
of  nose  and  chin  in  it.  "I  haven't  seen  you  since 
my  coming-out  party,"  she  said,  as  he.  glanced 
round  at  her. 

"No.  I  don't  go  about  much  these "  He 

smiled — a  slow  lighting  up  of  a  pair  of  keen  gray 
eyes — "these  last  twenty  odd  years." 

She  laughed.  It  sounded  like  a  joke,  though 
she  knew  that  this  oldish  young  man  had  been 
several  years  out  of  college  when  her  mother  had 
cast  aside  her  last  short  dress  for  her  first  long 
one  twenty-four  years  before. 

"I  should  think  you  wouldn't  care  to  go," 
252 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

she  replied.  "One  season  has  been  quite  enough 
for  me." 

She  saw  just  a  suggestion  of  a  smile  of  raillery 
in  his  profile. 

"Oh,  I  don't  mean  that"  she  hastened  to  add. 
"But  I  was  brought  up  quietly  and  got  such  a  dif 
ferent  idea  of  enjoyment.  It  isn't  that  I'm  bored 
with  living.  I'm  only  bored  with  not  living.  I 
don't  call  it  living  to  dress  several  times  a  day 
and  rush  from  place  to  place,  eating  when  I'm  not 
hungry,  talking  when  I've  nothing  to  say,  listening 
when  there's  nothing  to  hear,  laughing  when  I 
really  want  to  yawn  and  go  to  sleep." 

He  glanced  at  her  with  interest;  she  felt,  with 
a  thrill  of  self-congratulation,  that  she  was  lifting 
herself  for  him  out  of  the  class  sweet  and  silly. 
"Oh,"  he  said.  "Then  why  do  you  do  it?" 

"Mother  would  be  disappointed  if  I  didn't. 
Besides,  what  else  is  there  to  do?  I  hate  to  stay 
alone  all  the  time.  And  mother  won't  have  me 
in  her  set.  She  says  it's  only  for  married  people 
and  that  it  spoils  for  marriage  the  girls  that  go 


in  it." 


253 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

Fenton  looked  thoroughly  amused.  He  won 
dered  whether  she  knew  that  her  mother's  chief 
reason  for  keeping  her  daughter  out  of  her  set 
was  the  absence  from  it  of  marrying  men.  "You'll 
simply  have  to  marry,"  he  said  with  gentle  mock 
ery.  "I  know  how  girls  hate  the  very  idea  of  it, 
but  your  case  is  desperate." 

She  was  overwhelmed  with  shyness — it  was 
impossible  for  her  ever  to  pretend  to  trifle  upon 
that  subject  with  this  man.  But  he  was  not  ob 
serving  her;  his  mind  had  wandered  off  to  some 
thing  far  from  her.  Presently  she  said :  "That's 
not  easy." 

He  recalled  with  some  difficulty  what  they  had 
been  talking  of  and  replied:  "Oh,  you  needn't 
let  that  worry  you.  When  the  time  comes  your 
mother'll  find  you  the  right  sort  of  man.  And 
you'll  love  him  dearly,  and — all  that — Damn!" 

They  had  just  swung  round  a  sharp  curve  and 
were  not  thirty  yards  from  a  team  of  four  farm 
horses  dragging  a  clumsy  wagon  and  filling  the 
whole  road.  Before  she  fully  grasped  the  mean 
ing  of  this  to  them,  darting  forward  at  the  rate 

254 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 


of  fifteen  or  twenty  miles  an  hour,  he  said  sharply: 
"Sit  still.  I'll  take  our  only  chance."  And,  as 
he  said  it,  he  put  one  arm  round  her  so  tightly 
that  she  could  not  have  moved,  and  with  the  other 
shut  off  the  power,  put  on  the  brake  and  turned 
the  auto  sharply  to  the  right.  It  rushed  through 
the  wire  fence,  up  the  bank,  across  a  narrow  level. 
Then  it  sprang  out  into  space.  Georgina  neither 
uttered  a  sound  nor  closed  her  eyes.  She  shut 
her  teeth  hard  together.  She  saw  and  felt  herself 
swinging  in  the  air,  heard  the  auto  strike  far 
below. 

He  was  clinging  to  a  tree  with  one  arm  and 
one  leg,  was  holding  her  in  the  other  arm.  The 
auto  had  fallen  to  the  bottom  of  the  cliff — she 
could  see  it  through  the  torn  branches  and  bushes. 
They  had  darted  into  a  narrow  gully ;  twenty  feet 
to  either  side  and  the  auto  would  have  run  safely 
along  a  smooth  slope. 

"You  must  be  quick,"  he  was  saying;  she  looked 
up  into  his  face — it  was  gray-white,  and  his  eyes 
were  heavy  and  dull.  "Quick!"  he  repeated. 
"Catch  the  tree  and  draw  yourself  in." 

255 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

She  obeyed  him. 

"Safe?"  he  asked. 

"Yes,"  she  replied,  and  stretched  out  her  hand 
to  help  him. 

But  as  soon  as  he  heard  her  "Yes,"  his  hold 
upon  the  tree  relaxed  and  his  body  went  crashing 
down.  Before  she  realized  what  had  happened, 
she  heard  it  strike — a  dead  sound,  like  a  finality. 

"Oh!"  she  shuddered,  covering  her  face.  Be 
hind  her  came  the  tramp  of  hasty  heavy  feet.  She 
straightened  herself. 

"Down  there!  Follow  me!"  she  said  to  the 
two  farm  hands  from  the  wagon.  And  she  darted 
along  the  slope,  broke  through  the  creepers,  and 
plunged  down  the  steep — sliding,  stumbling,  leap 
ing.  With  torn  hands  and  scratched  and  bleeding 
face  she  was  kneeling  beside  him;  with  gentle, 
tremulous  fingers  she  was  brushing  the  sand  and 
mud  from  his  face.  He  had  fallen  upon  a  mound 
of  muddy  sand,  had  struck  it  at  a  lucky  angle,  had 
slid  along  and  was  half  covered  with  earth.  His 
eyes  opened  in  a  stupid  stare.  Intelligence  came 
gradually,  and  with  a  faint  smile  he  said : 

256 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

"Why,  I'm  not  dead." 

"No — no,"  she  replied,  drawing  back  now  that 
he  was  conscious.  The  tears  rushed  from  her 
eyes ;  then  came  sobs  and  queer  little  bursts  of 
laughter!  "Thank  God!  Thank  God!"  And 
she  clasped  her  hands  and  began  murmuring  a 
Latin  prayer.  But  before  she  had  finished  she 
swayed  and  fainted. 


257 


Ill 

WHEN  Georgina  came  to,  the  farm 
hands  were  lifting  Fenton  to  a 
broad  board  that  they  had  brought 
from  the  side  of  the  wagon  bed.  He  was  un 
conscious.  She  staggered  to  her  feet,  dipped  a 
corner  of  her  skirt  in  the  near-by  pool  of  water, 
and  washed  the  dirt  from  his  face  and  cooled  his 
forehead  and  temples.  The  stern  set  of  his  fea 
tures  relaxed. 

The  two  men  carried  him  up  the  hill,  holding 
him  to  keep  his  body  from  slipping  off.  They 
lifted  him  to  the  wagon,  which  was  half  full  of 
straw;  and  with  his  head  in  her  lap,  the  slow  jour 
ney  toward  home  began.  He  opened  his  eyes 
several  times,  and  bit  his  lip  to  suppress  a  groan. 
Once  he  said:  "You  really  weren't  hurt?" 

But  she  couldn't  tell  whether  he  heard  her  re 
assuring  negative. 

This  agitation  burst  upon  the  tranquil  house 

258 


WHITE   ROSES  AND  RED 

party  at  the  Bristows',  just  as  they  were  gather 
ing  in  the  library  for  tea. 

Straightway  every  one  set  about  making  the 
most  of  the  break  in  the  monotony.  The  doctor 
came  from  the  village ;  a  second  and  a  third  came 
from  the  town  seven  miles  away;  finally  a  fourth 
arrived  from  New  York,  bringing  two  trained 
nurses.  Poor  Fenton  was  gone  over  again  and 
again,  for  it  seemed  incredible  that  he  was  suf 
fering  only  from  a  mighty  shaking  up,  many 
bruises,  three  bad  sprains,  and  a  broken  leg.  Be 
sides,  each  doctor  was  bound  to  justify  the  bill 
he  had  resolved  to  send,  as  soon  as  he  had  learned 
to  whose  house  and  for  whom  he  was  summoned. 
And  Georgina  was  put  to  bed,  and  was  examined 
thoroughly  by  each  of  the  four  and  by  the  four 
together.  She  was  pronounced  an  invalid  in  dis 
regard  of  her  protests,  and  was  sent  off  to  sleep 
by  a  stiff  hypodermic. 

Toward  night  Fenton  waked  up.  "What  be 
came  of  'Mons'?"  he  asked  the  nurse. 

No  one  had  thought  of  him.  Next  day  they 
found  his  body  twenty  feet  from  the  auto, 

259 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

stretched  on  a  table  of  stone.  He  had  leaped  as 
the  auto  left  the  edge  of  the  cliff,  and  had  broken 
his  neck. 

"I  simply  can't  leave  Georgie  behind,"  said 
Mrs.  Bristow. 

She  was  in  bed  in  a  bedroom  done  in  pale  blue 
silk — walls,  furniture,  curtains,  canopy,  coverlid; 
and  her  nightgown  was  of  pale  blue  silk  with  real 
lace  at  the  neck  and  sleeves.  She  looked  young  and 
pretty.  When  she  was  dressed  she  seemed  some 
what  older,  and  too  strong  a  character  to  have 
such  a  word  as  "pretty"  applied  to  her.  Although 
only  her  sister  and  frequent  substitute,  Miss 
Martha  Chase,  was  with  her,  her  toilet  was  made 
to  the  last  carefully  arranged  lock.  For,  nowa 
days,  she  permitted  no  one,  not  even  her  maid,  to 
see  her  before  she  had  effaced  or  lightened  the 
marks  of  the  years  since  thirty. 

"And,  on  the  other  hand,"  she  went  on,  "I 
can't  take  her  with  me."  The  first  "can't"  had 
been  said  dubiously;  this  second  was  very  reso 
lute. 

"I  don't  see  why  not,"  replied  her  sister. 
260 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 


"Why  not  what?"  demanded  Mrs.  Bristow, 
instantly  irritated. 

"Whichever  you  please,"  answered  her  sister 
with  a  smile.  She  had  been  a  belle  until  she  was 
thirty,  but  had  hesitated  too  long,  in  a  day  when 
marriage  meant  the  end  instead  of  the  beginning. 
During  these  last  fifteen  years  of  settled  spinster- 
hood  she  had  experienced  daily  practice  in 
self-sacrifice  and  self-effacement.  And  she  was  a 
witness,  daily,  to  the  ingenious  and  ingenuous  self 
ishness  of  her  luckier  sister.  She  was  the  working 
or  drudging  head  of  the  Bristow  household,  and, 
in  exchange  for  the  genteel  satisfaction  of  being 
"one  of  the  family"  instead  of  a  paid  employee, 
she  gave  service  worth  ten  times  her  modest  keep. 
"You'll  do  as  you  please,"  she  continued.  "You 
always  did.  You  always  do." 

"But  how  can  I  take  her  with  me,  Martha," 
said  her  sister,  "when  the  doctors  have  ordered 
me  to  go  to  Aix  for  a  serious  cure?" 

Martha  knew  that  a  "serious  cure"  at  Aix 
meant  a  bath,  exercise,  massage,  and  a  nap  in  the 
morning;  with  gambling,  flirting,  and  dancing 

261 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

from  luncheon  on  until  midnight,  or  later.  But 
she  was  not  argumentative,  not  the  least  bit  spite 
ful.  So  she  replied:  uYou  can't,  my  dear.  Be 
sides,  why  shouldn't  you  leave  her?" 

"With  Fenton  laid  up  here  for  weeks  and 
weeks,  not  sick  enough  to  stay  in  bed,  yet  not  able 
to  go  away?" 

"But  I'll  be  here." 

uYou  can't  keep  Georgie  away  from  him." 

"Why  should  I?" 

Mrs.  Bristow  looked  reflective.  "I'd  thought 
of  that,"  she  said,  absently.  "He's  not  in  the 
least  likely  to  fall  in  love  with  her,  really.  But 
then — there's  Mrs.  Sylvester." 

"She  couldn't  get  at  him  here.  She's  in  Europe 
anyhow." 

"I  saw  in  the  papers  yesterday  that  she  was 
sailing  for  America  next  Saturday — the  day  I  am 
— that  is,  the  day  I  had  planned  to  sail  for  Aix. 
.  .  .  Besides,"  Mrs.  Bristow  hesitated  a  long 
time  before  going  on  slowly,  "I'm  not  quite  sure 
I'd  like  it  if  he  were  to  want  Georgina.  He's 
too  old — inside,  I  mean.  He  knows  too  much. 

262 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

What  chance  would  Georgina  have  against  him? 
And  she'd  love  him  to  death  for  a  year  or  so — 
and — then  what?  No,  I'd  prefer  a  younger 


man." 


"So  would  Georgie,  no  doubt,"  replied  Martha. 

"Yes,  I  think  I'll  sail."  Mrs.  Bristow  sat  up, 
threw  aside  the  covers,  and  thrust  a  foot  into 
one  of  the  slippers  on  the  big  white  bearskin  at 
the  edge  of  the  bed.  "There's  hardly  a  chance 
of  those  two  bothering  each  other.  No,  he'd 
never  do  it.  He's  not  a  marrying  man." 

"Every  man  is  a  marrying  man,  just  as  every 
woman's  a  marrying  woman,"  answered  Miss 
Chase. 

"Well,  watch  them,  Martha.  I  trust  to  your 
judgment."  Whenever  Mrs.  Bristow  trusted 
anything  to  some  one  else's  judgment,  it  was  be 
cause  she  was  not  especially  interested.  "Any 
how,  he's  a  man  of  honor,  and  would  not  trifle 
with  a  girl" 

Three  days  before  sailing  she  sent  for  Geor 
gina  to  come  to  her  sitting  room.  As  her  daugh 
ter  entered  she  said:  "No,  don't  sit.  Just  stand 

263 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

there  a  minute  and  let  me  look  at  you."  And 
Georgina,  with  an  amused  smile,  mockingly  posed 
for  inspection.  "There's  certainly  no  reason  to 
be  ashamed  of  you,"  said  her  mother,  with  a 
quick  approving  nod  of  her  small,  graceful 
head. 

"Thank  you  kindly,  ma'am,"  answered 
Georgie,  with  a  curtsy. 

"I  sent  for  you,  dear,"  her  mother  went  on, 
"because  I  wanted  to  have  a  serious  talk  with  you 
before  I  go  away.  I  wanted  to  take  you  with  me, 
but  the  doctor  insisted  that  I  must  be  quiet.  And 
how  could  I  be  quiet  if  I  had  you  on  my  con 
science — was  always  looking  out  to  see  that  you 
enjoyed  yourself?" 

Georgina  looked  relieved  and  cheerful  and 
said  nothing.  She  did  not  analyze  her  mother 
ever — she  was  perfect!  Still  being  with  mother 
meant  being  sent  away  whenever  anyone  interest 
ing  came,  or  anything  interesting  was  about  to  be 
said;  meant  going  early  to  bed,  mournfully  con 
scious  that  the  fun  would  not  begin  until  she  was 
gone. 

264 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

"It's  most  disagreeable,  this  leaving  you  here 
when  Fenton  is  in  the  house,"  went  on  her 
mother,  "but  there's  no  help  for  it.  And  of 
course  you'll  keep  to  yourself  as  much  as  pos 
sible — as  much  as  you  courteously  can.  Martha 
is  the  real  hostess.  Only — don't  avoid  him.  You 
needn't  have  any  shyness  about  him,  for  he's  old 
enough  to  be  your — well,  almost,  to  be  your 
grandfather." 

"He's  only  forty-seven,"  said  Georgie,  ear 
nestly. 

"Only  forty-seven!"  Mrs.  Bristow  gave  her 
daughter  a  look  that  made  her  flush. 

"And  he's  so  much  more  intelligent  than  the 
other  men  I  know,"  Georgie  couldn't  help  being 
frank,  but  she  was  wretched  in  it.  "And — and — 
so  much  more  worth  while."  She  was  deter 
mined  to  remove  the  prejudice  against  Fenton  in 
her  mother's  mind. 

Mrs.  Bristow  smiled  with  careful  careless 
ness. 

"Look  out,  child,  He's  a  dangerous  man.  But, 
of  course,  my  daughter  couldn't  fall  in  love  with 

265 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 


any  man  unless  he  were  first  in  love  with  her. 
Besides,  the  surest  way  to  lose  a  man  is  to  show 
him  that  you  care  especially  for  him,'*  and  there 
Mrs.  Bristow  dropped  the  subject. 


266 


IV 

IT  happened  that  Fenton's  rooms  were  in  the 
left  wing,  overlooking  the  drive.  Thus, 
each  morning  as  he  lay  propped  at  the  bay 
window,  well  screened  in,  he  saw  Georgie  going 
for  her  regular  ride.  Then  strength  came  back 
to  him,  and  the  power  of  some  motion  without 
pain;  and  his  eyes  and  his  mind,  eagerly  searching 
for  distraction,  found  in  the  handsome  young 
woman  on  her  handsome  horse  the  bright  event  of 
a  long,  black,  boresome  day. 

When  the  groom  passed,  leading  the  horse  to 
ward  the  main  entrance,  beyond  view  from  Fen- 
ton's  outlook,  his  eyes  lit  up  and  his  mind  got 
ready  to  make  the  most  of  a  brief  bit  of  sunshine. 
When  she  appeared,  a  thrill  ran  through  him 
that  would  have  been  impossible,  would  have 
seemed  ludicrous,  had  he  not  wholly  lost  his 
sense  of  proportion  in  his  isolation. 

He  had  spent  his  whole  life  among  people  and 
267 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 


events;  had  gone  in  for  every  kind  of  outdoor 
and  indoor  exercise.  And  while  he  thought  a 
great  deal  and  thought  well,  it  was  only  when 
he  was  talking  or  listening,  or  when  he  had  some 
definite  problem  to  solve — a  speculation  or  a  con 
test  or  a  woman.  Like  all  whose  idle  lives  are 
full  of  people,  he  had  no  resources  within  him 
self. 

Not  until  the  third  of  June  was  he  in  condi 
tion  to  receive  in  his  sitting  room.  This  meant 
that  he  could  expand  his  circle  to  include  others 
than  the  doctors,  the  nurses,  his  valet,  Miss 
Chase,  Mr.  Bristow,  and  an  occasional  man  friend 
resolutely  sacrificing  himself  to  an  hour's  "duty" 
in  a  sick  room.  The  first  to  enter  the  widened 
circle  was  impatient  Georgina,  full  of  dreams 
and  imaginings  and  hopes  and  of  those  touching, 
beautiful  idealizings  which  experience  dispels  for 
ever  as  it  relentlessly  drives  mortals  from  the 
Eden  of  youth.  Georgina  came  under  escort  of 
her  aunt — came  with  a  speech  of  gratitude  to 
him  for  saving  her  life,  carefully  studied  out  and 
learned.  At  sight  of  him  it  fled,  and  as  she  was 

268 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 


frantically  beckoning  it  back,  her  eyes  chanced 
to  note  that  in  a  vase  on  the  table  at  his  elbow 
there  was  a  bunch  of  white  roses. 

Each  day,  flowers  had  been  sent  to  his  room 
by  the  head  gardener,  and  each  day  Georgina  had 
herself  covertly  put  among  the  flowers  a  bunch 
of  white  roses — and  here  it  was,  singled  out  for 
the  highest  honors!  Singled  out,  not  only  from 
among  the  flowers  of  the  Bristow  gardens  and 
hothouses,  but  from  among  all  his  flowers.  In 
the  beginning  of  his  illness  they  had  come  to  him 
from  the  city,  and  from  the  big  houses  in  that 
part  of  the  country.  But  his  friends  had  rap 
idly  relaxed  their  assiduity,  until,  by  the  end  of 
the  third  week,  aside  from  an  occasional  bunch 
of  flowers — the  offering  of  some  casual  impulse 
or  accidentally  jogged  memory — there  came  only 
one  regular  token  from  the  outside.  It  was  al 
ways  from  the  same  New  York  florist;  it  was 
always  two  dozen  magnificent  full-blown  red 
roses. 

Georgina  knew  this.  And  when  she  saw  where 
the  white  roses  were,  she  looked  around  for  the 

269 


WHITE   ROSES  AND  RED 

red  roses — for  her  one  serious  rival.  There 
might  be  a  place  of  even  higher  honor  than  the 
table  at  his  elbow. 

But  he  was  speaking  to  her:  "At  last  I've  the 
chance  to  abase  myself,  mademoiselle."  His  tone 
was  that  of  a  grown  person  addressing  a  child; 
was  deliberately  so  because  he  was  reminding 
himself  of  her  youth — was  rebuking  himself  for 
the  fancies  he  had  permitted  to  overrun  his  fal 
low  brain.  "Will  you  forgive  me  for  giving  you 
that  fearful  shaking  up?" 

"Oh,  that's  nothing,"  she  said.  Why  did  she 
always  appear  so  stupid  before  him?  The 
thought  made  her  stammer,  as  she  went  on:  "I 

— I — it  is  I  who  must "     Suddenly  she  saw 

him  in  vivid  fancy  clinging  to  that  tree;  heard 
him  saying,  "Safe?"  and  assuring  himself  of  it; 
and  then,  and  not  until  then,  giving  way  to  the 
faintness  he  had  fought  down  so  long  as  she  was 
in  danger.  And  her  shyness  fled.  A  great  splen 
did  flame  of  natural,  generous  enthusiasm  flashed 
up  within  her,  and  showed  itself  in  beauty  in  her 
eyes  and  in  her  color. 

270 


WHITE   ROSES  AND  RED 

"Oh — you  were  so  brave !"    she  exclaimed. 

And  Robert  Fenton  flushed  and  thrilled  like  a 
boy,  and  knew  that  no  woman  had  ever  in  all 
his  life  given  him  the  pleasure  that  this  girl,  with 
out  in  the  least  intending  flattery  or  even  compli 
ment,  had  given  him.  "I  wish  I  deserved  that," 
was  all  he  could  say.  Her  unconsciousness  of 
self  passed  as  swiftly  as  it  had  come,  and  she 
looked  frightened — painfully  shy.  He  turned  to 
Miss  Chase,  and  began  thanking  her  for  some 
novels  she  had  sent  up  that  morning.  And  now 
Georgina  had  found  the  red  roses  in  a  tall  jar 
in  a  corner  of  the  room,  behind  him.  And 
straightway  there  was  as  wild  a  tumult  in  her 
heart  as  the  sight  of  him,  so  handsome,  so  "diffi 
cult,"  so  compelling,  had  caused  ten  minutes  be 
fore. 

Presently  her  aunt  was  called  away,  and  left, 
saying  to  Georgie,  "I'll  be  gone  only  a  moment." 
Fenton  settled  himself  a  little  more  comfortably 
and  waited.  He  talked  little  to  women  or  to 
men,  until  he  knew  them.  It  was  an  easy  way 
to  learn  whether  they  were  worth  while,  and  if 

271 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

they  were,  how  to  go  forward.  Poor  Georgina 
was  not  ready  for  her  opportunity. 

"I  must  talk.  I  must!"  she  said  to  herself, 
pleadingly,  reproachfully.  But  of  what — of 
what?  She  glanced  fearfully  at  him.  She  saw  a 
twinkle  in  his  eyes.  She  smiled — he  smiled.  She 
laughed. 

"What  is  it?"  he  asked. 

"Before  I  came  up  here,"  she  explained,  "I 
thought  out  and  learned  a  little  speech  of  grati 
tude  to  say  to  you.  But  it  ran  away  and  left  me 
as  soon  as  we  opened  your  door.  And  now  IVe 
been  trying  to  find  something  to  say,  and  I  can't 
think  of  anything  because  that  miserable  speech 
is  all  over  the  place." 

"Well,  you  might  recite  it,  and  so  get  rid 
of  it." 

"No,  thank  you.     I'll  just  sit  silent." 

"Am  I  such  a  dreadful  person  that  you  can't 
talk  to  me  naturally  ?  What  have  my  nurses  been 
saying  about  me?" 

"The  first  time  I  heard  of  you,  it  was  that  you 
had  been  everywhere  and  seen  everything.  So, 

272 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

all  I  could  do  would  be  to  ask  questions," — she 
smiled.  He  liked  her  smile.  It  made  him  think 
of  a  garden  of  flowers  seen  suddenly,  sparkling 
with  dew,  when  the  shutters  are  thrown  open  on 
a  bright  summer  morning. 

"It  isn't  fair  to  judge  anyone  by  what  others 
say  of  him,"  he  replied. 

"Why  not?" 

"Because  everyone  is  a  different  person  to  each 
person  he  knows.  With  each  person  one  meets, 
one  has  an  opportunity  to  begin  all  over  again 
and  write  a  new  reputation  on  a  brand-new  slate. 
You  and  I,  for  example — we  start  with  a  clean 
slate,  each  for  the  other." 

She  shook  her  head:  "I  think  I  understand 
you.  But  I  don't  think  it's  so.  Each  of  us  has 
only  one  slate " 

He  made  an  impatient  gesture  with  his  eye 
brows.  "I  see  you've  not  yet  thrown  away  your 
copybook." 

She  flushed.  "Because  a  thing's  in  the  copy 
book,  that  doesn't  make  it  less  true,  does  it?" 

He  looked  amused;  not  at  her  simplicity,  as 

273 

A 


WHITE   ROSES  AND  RED 

she  thought,  but  at  his  own  irritation.  What  a 
far  cry  it  was  from  the  Robert  Fenton  of  before 
that  accident  to  the  Robert  Fenton  who,  shut 
into  this  narrow  world,  was  mooning  over  ques 
tions  of  morals,  and  was  standing  abashed  and 
admiring  before  the  snowy  altars  of  innocence. 
"Pardon  me  for  seeming  to  be  irritated/'  he  said 
to  her,  "but  my  nerves  are  not  at  their  best.  I've 
had  too  long  a  stay  in  one  room  with  a  person 
whose  solitary  company  I've  avoided  as  much  as 
I  could  all  my  life.  He  and  I  have  been  wrang 
ling  over  and  staring  at  and  cowering  before  the 
truth  for  five  weeks  and  on.  I'm  just  a  little 
sick  of — the  truth."  A  long  pause,  then: 
"You're  only  just  out  of  school?" 

"Oh,  no,  it's  almost  a  year  now." 

"A  year!  Think  of  that!"  He  stopped  rail- 
lery  and  went  on  reflectively:  "Still,  one  out  of 
eighteen  seems  a  vast  deal  more  than  one  out  of" 
— he  hesitated  and  smiled  humorously  at  himself 
— "out  of  forty.  And  are  you  glad  or  sorry  to 
be  out  of  school?" 

"I'm — not — sure.  I  do  so  long  to — to  live! 
274 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

And  yet  it  frightens  me.  Sometimes  I  envy  the 
sisters;  not  those  who  teach,  but  those  who're 
walled  away  from  the  world,  and  hear  it  only  as 
one  hears  the  hum  of  the  city.  I  envy  them  hav 
ing  their  whole  lives  marked  out  for  them,  so 
that  they  can  be  sure  each  day  that  they've  done 
all  they  ought  to  do." 

Fenton  was  leaning  his  head  back  deep  in  the 
pillows,  and  thinking  with  his  eyes  almost  closed. 
This  child  with  her  anxieties  about  "doing"  and 
about  "ought"  did  not  strike  him  as  at  all  amus 
ing  and  primitive.  "Yes,  I  can  understand  that," 
he  said,  absently.  "But  you  wouldn't  like  it — 
really?" 

"I — I  think  not.  But  I've  felt  for  a  long  time 
that,  if  any  great  calamity  were  to  come  to  me — 
if  I  found  the  world  impossible  to  me — I'd  go 
back  to  them.  You  don't  know  how  tranquil  it 
is,  how  soothing." 

"Like  being  in  one's  grave  and  peacefully  at 
rest,  yet  conscious  of  the  comfort  of  it."  He 
drew  a  deep  breath,  as  if  the  idea  somehow  at 
tracted  him.  "But,"  he  went  on,  "you  say  you 

275 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

long  to  live — to  live  bravely,  I  suppose. 
Wouldn't  you  think  it  cowardly  to  run  away 
from  the  battle  just  because  it  happened  to  be 
going  against  you  for  the  moment?" 

uYes — that.  But  I  meant  if  I  were — were 
like  a  mortally  wounded  soldier. " 

"Then"— he  said,  half  to  himself— uyes,  of 
course."  He  moved  impatiently.  uHow  serious 
we  are.  We've  no  right  to  call  ourselves  sol 
diers  ;  at  least,  I've  no  right.  We  sit  in  the  boxes 
and  watch  the  struggle  as  a  sort  of  spectacle. 
And  at  the  right  places  we  hiss  or  applaud  or 
shed  comfortable  theater  tears.  And  when  the 
show  is  over  for  the  day,  we  gather  our  wraps 
about  us  and  drive  home  in  our  comfortable  car 
riages  to  our  comfortable  beds."  And  he  ended 
with  a  satirical  smile. 

But  Georgina  didn't  see  it.  She  saw  in  him 
what  she  wished  to  see  and  only  that.  Her  eyes 
flashed,  and  the  resolute  curve  of  her  chin  be 
came  conspicuous.  "I'm  sure  you're  not  that 
kind,"  she  said,  with  energy.  "That  would  be 
real  cowardice — worse.  A  coward  has  at  least 

276 


WHITE   ROSES  AND  RED 

tried  to  fight.  And  maybe  he  couldn't  help  be 
ing  a  coward.  But  to  sit,  selfish  and  indifferent, 
and  watch  one's  fellow  being  struggle  and  die — 
to  let  others  die  for  one — you'd  never  do  that!" 

He  stirred  uneasily.  He  had  heard  something 
like  this  before,  but  never  from  anyone  but  him 
self—himself  holding  him  up  in  his  innermost 
privacy  for  derision  and  scorn.  "Then  what  do 
you  purpose  to  do?"  he  asked. 

"I  don't  know."  She  colored  for  no  apparent 
reason.  "It's  very  hard  for  a  woman  to  do  any- 
thing  alone.  I've  thought  I'd  like  to  be  one  of 
those  women  you  read  about — the  ones  that  be 
come  artists  and  players  and  doctors  and — all 
sorts  of  things.  But " 

"Well— why  not?" 

"I'm  afraid  I'm  not  that  kind  of  woman.  I — 
I  couldn't  be  a  leader.  I  might  help  some  one 
else.  I  might  take  orders  from  some  one  or 
make  suggestions — or "  She  halted  and  be 
came  self-conscious  again. 

"You  mean  you  could  be  a  wife  to  some  man 
who  was  trying  to  do  something?" 

277 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

"No,  I  didn't  mean  that" — she  was  pale  with 
embarrassment.  "I  wasn't  thinking  of  that 
just  then.  I  wasn't  thinking  of  anything 
definite." 

"But  why  shouldn't  you  look  forward  to  find 
ing  the  young  man  who'll  suit  you  and  marrying 
him?"  he  insisted  earnestly.  Then  he  remem 
bered  to  whom,  to  whose  daughter,  he  was  talk 
ing  this  heresy,  this  absurdity.  "But  you'll  have 
small  chance  of  finding  the  sort  you  seem  to  think 
you  want  at  present.  I'm  afraid  you're  cut  out 
to  marry  from  the  boxes,  not  from  the  arena. 
And — I  think  you'll  realize  before  you're  much 
older  that  your  fate  is,  on  the  whole,  much  more 
comfortable.  You're  not  old  enough  to  appre 
ciate  comfort  yet.  It's  among  the  few  valuables 
that  grow  on  one,  with  possession." 

"But,"  she  laughed,  "I  may  not  find  the  boxes 
comfortable." 

"Oh,  yes,  you  will." 

"Do  youf 

"Rather!  I  wouldn't  move  for  the  world.  No 
dust  and  sweat  for  me,  thank  you.  I  never  watch 

278 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

the  battle  that  I'm  not  thankful  the  good  God 
created  me  to  be  a  spectator." 

She  looked  incredulous.  "I'm  sure  you  wrong 
yourself,"  she  said,  dropping  back  to  earnestness. 
"And  even  if  you  haven't  fought  yet,  you've  been 
getting  ready.  And  you'll  fight  the  better  when 
you  do  begin." 

"Getting  ready."  He  repeated  the  words 
thoughtfully.  "Yes,  I  used  to  think  that.  But  I 
either  waited  too  long  or  never  really  intended 
to  go  down.  Now  my  sword  is  rusted  to  the  scab 
bard,  and" — he  sighed.  He  looked  up,  and 
found  her  eyes  sympathetically  upon  him. 

Aunt  Martha  came  back,  full  of  an  amusing 
wrangle  with  the  butler  over  some  question  of 
below-stairs  precedence.  And  presently  the  two 
women  went  away.  He  could  not  shake  off  the 
mood  into  which  the  girl  had  compelled  him. 
"No,  not  she,"  he  protested,  "but  my  infernal, 
lonesome,  tiresome  self,  cooped  up  here  for  six 
weeks  and  forced  to  gnaw  upon  itself." 

The  next  afternoon  he  had  himself  moved 
down  to  the  veranda  that  looked  upon  the  gar- 

279 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 


den.  And  Georgina  sat  with  him,  reading  to 
him  and  talking  with  him.  This  for  four  after 
noons.  On  the  fifth  it  was  raining  and  he  re 
mained  in  his  sitting  room,  and  she  came  to  him 
there.  She  looked  around  for  the  red  roses — an 
instinct,  rather  than  a  formulated  curiosity,  defi 
nitely  directed.  She  could  not  have  said  why, 
but  it  made  her  so  gay  that  she  felt  able  to  fight 
off  the  depression  of  the  clouds  and  rain  for  them 
both,  when,  after  a  long  search,  she  saw  the  red 
roses  reposing  in  a  half-opened  box  on  the  stand 
near  the  door. 

"He  does  care  for  me!"  she  thought,  and  was 
caught  up  in  a  whirl  of  delight.  And  then  she 
was  bitterly  ashamed.  What  of  the  other  woman 
— the  girl  who  was  sending  these  flowers?  "How 
she  would  suffer  if  she  knew!"  she  said  to  her 
self.  And  she  tried  to  be  distant  with  him,  and 
left  him  when  she  might  have  spent  a  whole  long 
hour  and  a  half  more  with  him. 

She  hovered  for  a  long  while  around  Aunt 
Martha,  and  finally  asked  her,  in  a  tone  which 
she  congratulated  herself  was  the  very  pattern 

280 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 


of  careless  indifference,  "I  suppose  Mr.  Fenton 
is  engaged." 

"Engaged!"  Miss  Chase  laughed.  "He  is 
notorious  as  a  bachelor.  He  never  has  gone  near 
young  girls  in  the  twenty  years  I've  known  him." 

Georgina  did  not  trust  herself  to  answer,  or 
to  stay  in  the  room  where  Aunt  Martha  might 
catch  a  glimpse  of  her  tell-tale  face. 


281 


THERE  were  two  rainy  days  more; 
then  on  the  fourth  morning  it  was 
brilliant.  Just  as  the  groom  led 
Georgina's  horse  by,  Fenton  was  wheeled  into 
his  bay  window  with  its  jalousies  drawn  to 
shut  out  the  direct  sun.  He  didn't  like  the 
look  of  the  horse.  "Three  days  in  the  stable 
have  put  the  devil  into  him,"  was  his  inference. 
And  presently  he  heard  the  groom  calling:  'Til 
hold  him,  miss,  while  you  get  down.  There's  no 
managing  him  to-day." 

Georgina  came  into  view.  Nomad's  ears  were 
flat  against  his  head;  his  always  uneasy  eyes  and 
nostrils  were  wicked.  His  skin  was  quivering, 
and  in  the  very  way  he  lifted  his  feet  from  the 
ground  and  set  them  down  he  showed  his  vicious 
mood.  Now  he  was  darting  from  side  to  side; 
now  wheeling  and  whirling;  now  he  was  jumping 
in  the  air;  was  rearing  and  backing — snorting 

282 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

furiously  the  while,  and  shaking  his  body  vio 
lently. 

The  groom  watched  for  a  chance,  jumped  in 
upon  him,  and  caught  him  by  the  bit.  "Can't  you 
get  down  here,  miss?"  he  asked. 

"Let  go,  please/'  said  Georgina  sharply.  "I 
must  conquer  him  now  or  I  can  never  ride  him 
again." 

The  groom  sprang  back,  and  Nomad  resumed 
his  wild  leaps  and  whirls  and  rushes.  Fenton,  in 
his  excitement  heedless  of  strain  and  pain,  was 
leaning  forward,  occasionally  half  rising  from 
his  chair.  And  the  nurse,  peering  through  the 
slats  of  the  blinds,  was  too  absorbed  to  note  what 
her  patient  was  doing.  Nomad  seemed  so  pow 
erful  and  cruel;  the  girl  on  his  back  seemed  so 
small  and  slight. 

"Beautiful!  Beautiful!"  exclaimed  Fenton. 
Nomad  had  sprung  into  the  air,  rearing  sharply 
as  he  rose,  and  flinging  himself  sideways. 
Georgina,  with  swift  grace,  had  adjusted  herself 
to  each  of  these  frantic  spasms,  and,  by  drawing 
the  rein  just  right  at  just  the  right  instant,  had 

283 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

saved  him  from  falling  as  he  descended.  Again 
and  again  he  tried  to  throw  her,  but  he  might 
as  well  have  tried  to  fling  off  his  mane.  Lightly 
she  sat,  lightly  she  held  him;  stroking  his  neck 
gently  whenever  he  paused  to  contrive  some  new 
violence;  talking  to  him  soothingly  yet  always 
with  the  note  of  command  in  her  voice. 

At  the  end  of  half  an  hour,  when  Fenton  was 
wondering  how  much  longer  it  would  be  possible 
for  her  to  endure,  Nomad  suddenly  gave  up  the 
fight  and  trotted  briskly  away.  An  hour  and  a 
half  later  Fenton,  nervous  for  her  although  he 
knew  a  groom  had  followed  her,  heard  the  quick 
beats  of  hoofs.  And  soon  Nomad  came  dashing 
round  the  curve,  covered  with  froth  and  foam. 
There  were  long  streamers  of  foam  upon 
Georgina's  riding  skirt. 

"She's  been  giving  him  a  stiff  run,"  Fenton  said 
to  himself.  uAnd  she  looks  fresher  than  when 
she  started.  What  a  girl — by  jove,  what  a 
woman!" 

Then  he  jeered  at  himself,  and  sank  back 
among  his  pillows  with  a  groan  that  was  as  much 

284 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

mental  as  physical.  For  the  first  time  in  his  life, 
he  envied  youth.  He  felt  old  and. dreary  and 
forlorn.  "I'm  a  'dead  one/  "  he  muttered. 

That  day,  after  lunch,  he  was  ensconced  in  a 
long  chair  on  the  veranda.  Georgina,  seated 
facing  him,  was  reading  one  of  Poe's  tales  aloud. 
Near  by  was  Aunt  Martha,  dozing  and  playing 
with  two  bright-eyed,  foolish-faced,  mutually 
jealous  Japanese  spaniels.  A  servant  brought 
her  two  cards.  She  read  the  names  aloud:  "Mrs. 
Alfred  Westervelt,  Mrs.  Boyd  Sylvester." 

Fenton  carelessly  took  a  white  rose  from  the 
buttonhole  of  his  smoking  jacket,  and  began  to 
twirl  it  idly  between  his  fingers  and  to  smell  it. 
"I  suppose  they've  come  to  see  me,"  he  said. 
"Mrs.  Westervelt's  a  sort  of  cousin  of  mine." 
The  rose  dropped  from  his  careless  fingers  and 
fell  among  the  cushions,  out  of  sight.  He  fum 
bled  vaguely  for  it,  then  gave  up  the  search. 
Georgina,  watching  him  covertly,  wished  he 
hadn't. 

"Show  the  ladies  out  here,"  said  Aunt  Martha 
to  the  servant. 

285 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

"Just  a  moment,  Burke,"  interrupted  Fenton, 
lazily.  "I'm  not  sure  I  want  to  see  them.  What 
do  you  think?"  That  to  Georgina. 

"It'll  be  a  distraction  for  you,"  she  replied, 
hoping  he  would  not  heed  her  suggestion.  She 
didn't  want  anyone  to  come;  she  had  been  im 
patient  for  Aunt  Martha  to  go. 

"That's  just  it — a  distraction,"  said  Fenton, 
absently,  as  if  the  idea  were  not  alluring. 

"The  Westervelts  live  quite  a  distance  from 
here,"  suggested  Aunt  Martha — most  tactlessly, 
Georgina  thought. 

"Oh — well — yes,  let's  see  them.  They  won't 
stay  long,  and — we'll — have  it  over  with." 

As  he  said  this  Georgina  closed  the  book,  rose, 
and  started  toward  the  open  drawing-room  win 
dow.  Fenton  looked  longingly  after  her.  As 
she  was  about  to  disappear,  he  called:  "Please 
don't  go,  Miss  Georgie.  She'll  leave  as  soon  as 
she  decently  can;  she's  only  come  to  make  a  duty 
visit.  As  soon  as  they're  gone  I  want  to  go  on 
with  our  story,  don't  you?  I  hate  to  drop  it  at 
the  most  interesting  part."  He  put,  perhaps  un- 

286 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 


consciously,  the  faintest  possible  accent  upon  the 
word  "story,"  and  again  upon  the  phrase  about 
the  interesting  part.  Just  enough  accent  to  sug 
gest  hazily  a  double  meaning.  Georgina  turned, 
her  brightening  face  showing  what  her  feelings 
had  been — to  what  a  height  she  had  been  raised 
from  her  sudden  depression.  As  she  came  to 
ward  his  chair  she  saw  that  he  was  again  search 
ing  for  the  white  rose.  And  he  found  it  and  put 
it  back  in  his  buttonhole. 

Now  Burke  was  holding  open  the  door  lead 
ing  into  the  main  hall.  Out  upon  the  veranda 
came  an  indistinct  elderly  person,  whom  the  eyes 
instantly  abandoned  for  the  personality  following 
her.  From  this  persuasive  personality  came  a 
persuasive  odor  that  seemed  characteristic  of  it 
— a  subtle,  fine,  faint  odor  of  violets  that 
straightway  scented  the  whole  veranda.  She 
was  tall  and  had  one  of  those  figures  that 
delicately,  yet  distinctly  and  captivatingly,  insin 
uate  the  idea  of  sex.  To  look  at  her  was  to 
think  of  Paris — Paris  at  the  height  of  the  sea 
son.  For,  beyond  question,  only  in  the  Rue  de 

287 


WHITE   ROSES  AND  RED 


la  Paix,  or  near  it,  could  that  toilet  have  been 
created,  and  only  there  could  any  woman  have 
learned  to  wear  it  as  Mrs.  Sylvester  was  wear 
ing  it. 

"How-do,  Martha,"  said  Mrs.  Westervelt — 
though  the  day  was  warm  and  she  was  fat,  she 
seemed  to  be  cool.  "And  that's  Georgiana — no, 
Georgina.  Oh,  there  you  are,  Robert.  How  do 
you  manage  it  so  that  you  are  always  comforta 
ble?  Georgina,  Martha,  this  is  Mrs.  Sylvester. 
She's  stopping  with  us." 

Mrs.  Sylvester  shook  hands  with  Miss  Chase 
and  with  Georgina,  then  greeted  Fenton :  "Poor 
Robert  Fenton!  What  a  fright  you  gave  every 
body!  And  weVe  all  been  so  worried  about  you ! 
And  here  you  lie,  comfortable  and  positively 
reeking  with  health."  Her  tone  was  light,  but 
her  eyes  wandered  from  one  bandage  to  another 
and  rested  at  last  upon  his  face;  and  her  gaze 
met  his  with  a  look  of  frank  and  tender  sym 
pathy  that  made  him  flush  faintly.  Georgina 
was  watching,  was  jealous. 

This  was  the  first  time  she  had  seen  him  with 
288 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

another  woman.     And  such   a   woman!      Geor- 
gina  felt  awkward  and,  worse,  insignificant. 

But  Mrs.  Sylvester  had  turned  away  from 
Fenton,  and  was  looking  at  her.  It  was  a  look 
Georgie  couldn't  help  liking.  And  she  soon  had 
Georgie  at  her  ease;  was  bringing  out  the  best 
there  was  in  her;  was  fascinating  her  with  the 
charm  of  perfect  manners — the  manners  that  are 
not  a  reflection  of  the  person  one  is  addressing, 
but  a  part  of  one's  own  personality.  When 
Burke  brought  her  a  glass  of  water  she  thanked 
him  precisely  as  she  would  have  thanked  Fenton 
for  the  same  service.  "I  like  her,  I  like  her," 
Georgina  was  saying  to  herself  before  half  an 
hour  had  passed.  "She's  perfectly  simple  and 
frank.  She  deserves  to  be  beautiful.  Her  out 
side  expresses  her  inside."  Georgina  had  a  the 
ory  that  outside  beauty  was  a  shining  through 
from  the  interior.  And  she  was  in  the  very  be 
ginning  of  that  long,  long  period  in  which  we 
hunt  for  confirmation  of  one  therein,  and  believe 
in  them  in  defiance  of  any  facts  however 
fatal. 

289 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

Simple  and  frank,  indeed!  Mrs.  Sylvester 
had  graduated  from  the  world's  highest  schools 
of  art  and  manners,  including  that  last  and  great 
est  school  where  is  taught  the  profound  art  of 
concealing  art.  Her  black  hair  waved  simply 
about  her  frank  open  brow,  and  was  gathered  in 
a  simple  knot  at  the  back  of  her  head  just  where 
a  single  red  rose,  seemingly  an  impulsive  after 
thought  of  a  refined  mind,  peeped  from  under 
the  brim  of  a  big  white  hat  with  a  single  sweep 
ing  white  plume.  The  fullnesses  of  her  soft 
gray-white  blouse,  and  the  folds  of  her  gray- 
white  skirt  fell  in  those  simple  natural  lines  that 
simple  nature,  somehow,  never  achieves.  And 
she  sat,  and  looked,  and  spoke,  and  smiled — all 
in  a  way  so  free  from  pose  and  pretence  I  Yet 
it  made  simple  nature  suggest  red  hands  and 
clumsy  feet. 

"I  wish  I  were  like  her,"  thought  Georgie, 
with  generous  regret.  "I  must  learn." 

Aunt  Martha  was  saying  to  Mrs.  Sylvester: 
"Is  it  your  first  visit  to  this  neighborhood?"  It 
struck  Georgina  that  Aunt  Martha's  tone  was  not 

290 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

quite  friendly,  and  she  hoped  Mrs.  Sylvester 
wouldn't  notice  it. 

"Yes,"  Mrs.  Westervelt  cut  in,  answering  for 
her.  "I've  tried  to  get  Virgie  up  here  for  six 
years.  But  she  never  would  come.  No  doubt 
we  were  too  dull  for  her.  And  day  before  yes 
terday  I  ran  across  her  in  the  Waldorf  at  lunch, 
and  she  said  she  was  in  despair  because  she 
hadn't  any  place  to  go.  So  at  last  I  got  her." 

"Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Sylvester,  looking  her  frank 
est  into  Aunt  Martha's  polite  but  suspicious  face. 
"I  came  up  this  morning.  I  hadn't  been  in  the 
house  three  hours  before  I  was  on  my  way  here." 

"I  simply  couldn't  stand  the  drive  alone,"  said 
Mrs.  Westervelt,  rising. 

As  Mrs.  Sylvester  shook  hands  with  Georgie, 
she  said:  "Don't  forget,  we're  to  meet  halfway, 
at  nine  to-morrow  morning." 

"We  can't  miss  each  other,  as  there's  only  one 
road,"  replied  Georgie. 

Mrs.  Westervelt  patted  Fenton  on  the  shoul 
der.  "Come  to  us,  Robert,  as  soon  as  you  can 
lift  yourself  off  these  unlucky  people's  hands. 

291 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

You  must  be  a  frightful  nuisance.     We're  rela 
tions,  and  won't  mind  so  much." 

"Good-bye,"  Mrs.  Sylvester  said  to  him  with 
a  nod  and  a  bright  smile,  and  she  turned  to 
Georgina.  "You're  taking  good  care  of  him. 
No  wonder  he  is  getting  on  so  well."  She  did 
not  even  glance  at  Fenton  again. 

Georgina  and  Aunt  Martha  went  to  the  front 
door  with  them.  Georgie  came  back  to  Fenton 
alone.  "Isn't  Mrs.  Sylvester  beautiful?"  she 
said.  "And  so  sweet!  That's  the  kind  of 
woman  I'd  like  to  be  when" — she  smiled  mock 
ingly  at  him — "when  I  grow  up." 

"You've  not  met  Mrs.  Sylvester  before?" 
asked  Fenton. 

"No,  and  I  do  hope  she'll  be  friends  with  me." 

"I  think  she  will,"  said  Fenton,  reflectively. 
And  when  Georgie  wasn't  looking  he  smiled  with 
some  amusement  at  his  own  thoughts. 

Later  in  the  day  Miss  Chase  found  her  niece 
alone,  and  said:  "I  shouldn't  have  too  much  to 
do  with  Mrs.  Sylvester  if  I  were  you,  my 
dear." 

292 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

Georgina  looked  astonished.  "Why  not?"  she 
inquired. 

Miss  Chase  had  no  intention  of  enlightening 
Georgina's  innocence.  "Oh,  there  are — lots  of 
stories  about  her." 

"No  doubt  a  great  many  women  are  jealous 
of  her,"  replied  Georgina. 

"No  doubt,  and  it's  said  that  some  of  them 
have  a  cause  that's — that's  not  creditable  to  her." 

"I  don't  believe  it,"  said  Georgina. 

"Perhaps  you're  right,"  Miss  Chase  admitted. 
"Women  are  so  merciless  and  spiteful  to  each 
other."  The  fact  was  that  Miss  Chase  herself 
had  been  half  won  by  Mrs.  Sylvester's  calm-com 
pelling  manner,  and  could  not  convincingly  revive 
the  suspicion  that  she  had  felt  as  soon  as  she 
saw  the  name  on  the  card.  "If  they  cared  any 
thing  at  all  about  each  other,"  she  said  to  her 
self,  "they'd  not  have  been  able  to  conceal  it 
from  my  eyes.  People  do  lie  so!" 

Each  day  Georgina  had  made  a  point  of  find 
ing  out  whether  the  red  roses  had  come.  When 
she  looked  as  usual,  the  morning  after  the  call, 

293 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

they  were  not  there.  Nor  did  they  come  the  next 
morning,  or  any  morning  thereafter.  A  few  days 
of  this  vain  search  for  that  which  she  longed  not 
to  find,  and  she  was  in  an  ecstasy  of  hope.  "He 
must  have  written  something  to  stop  them,"  she 
told  her  believing  self.  "What  other  reason 
could  there  be,  since  he  hasn't  seen  her?  And 
if  he  did  write,  why  did  he  write  ?"  In  the  an 
swer  to  that  question,  Georgie  found  the  great 
cloudless  happiness  that  only  the  young  and  in 
experienced  can  entertain  without  fear  and 
dread. 


294 


VI 

IT  was  less  than  nine  easy  miles  to  the  Wes- 
tervelts',  so  Georgina  and  her  new  friend 
met  almost  every  morning  to  take  their 
ride  together.  Georgina  talked  a  great  deal  of 
Fenton,  Mrs.  Sylvester  merely  listening.  But 
there  are  two  kinds  of  silence — the  simple  silence 
that  discourages,  and  the  subtle  silence  that  en 
courages.  It  was  not  long  before  Mrs.  Sylvester 
was  in  possession  of  the  whole  of  Georgina's  se 
cret — this  when  Georgina  fancied  it  still  securely 
hid  where  none  but  Fenton  could  find  it.  Per 
haps  it  was  Mrs.  Sylvester's  thoughts  on  this  pur 
loined  (not  to  use  too  coarse  a  word  where  so 
refined  a  woman  is  concerned)  secret  that  caused 
the  following  conversations. 

''Why  do  you  look  at  me  so  peculiarly ?"  asked 
Georgina,  when  they  were  having  their  fifth  ride. 

"Envy,"   replied   Mrs.   Sylvester,  in  the  tone 
so  often  used  to  make  truth  seem  a  liar. 

295 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

Georgina  laughed.  "I  wish  it  were,"  she  said. 
"How  that  would  flatter  me!" 

"You  are  so  beautifully  young,"  Mrs.  Sylves 
ter  went  on,  "so  beautifully  young!" 

"I  look  older  than  you  do,"  said  Georgina, 
and  there  was  truth  in  it. 

"You  can  afford  to,"  replied  Mrs.  Sylvester, 
with  a  tinge  of  bitterness.  And  she  changed  the 
subject. 

Naturally  Georgina  talked  a  great  deal  of  her 
wonderful  friend  to  "the  prisoner,"  as  she  mock 
ingly  called  Fenton  whenever  he  looked  morose. 
And  what  she  said  was  not  only  generous,  but 
also  appreciative;  and  so  it  revived  and  quick 
ened  memories  that  had  been  sluggish  or  dor 
mant. 

He  couldn't  help  feeling  sorry  for  the  girl 
that  in  her  inexperience  she  was  playing  "the 
game"  so  badly.  "She's  too  simple-minded  even 
to  know  that  one  woman  mustn't  talk  to  a  man 
of  another  woman;  that,  whether  she  says  good 
or  evil  of  her,  she  harms  herself."  He  was  at 
first  tempted  to  warn  Georgina  off  that  fatal  sub- 

296 


WHITE   ROSES  AND  RED 

ject.      But   the   more   she    talked    the   more   he 
wanted  to  hear. 

In  the  ten  days  following  the  call,  Mrs.  Syl 
vester  lunched  three  times  at  the  Bristows'.  Twice 
she  went  away  immediately  after  lunch,  sending 
her  regrets  to  "the  prisoner"  by  Georgina — Fen- 
ton  was  never  brought  downstairs  until  after 
lunch.  The  third  time  he  was  on  his  way  in  his 
invalid  chair  to  the  veranda,  when  Mrs.  Sylves 
ter  and  Georgina  came  out  of  the  dining  room. 

"You'll  not  be  able  to  pretend  much  longer," 
said  Mrs.  Sylvester  to  him,  with  a  pure  friend 
liness  of  manner  that  somehow  irritated  him, 
though  none  knew  better  than  he  what  a  con 
summate  actress  she  was.  "Your  arms  are  free 
and  you're  able  to  move  about  in  your  chair." 

"The  game's  up,"  he  said  cheerfully.  "I 
thought  I'd  be  able  to  fool  them  for  a  week  or 
two  longer.  I  see  I  shall  have  to  move  on  pretty 
quickly,  if  I  don't  wish  to  be  invited  to  leave." 

"You  going  to  the  Westervelts' ?" 

"I'm  undecided,"  he  answered.  "I  ought  to 
go  to  town.  But — I  like  it  up  here." 

297 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

"You  really  mustn't  disappoint  Mrs.  Wester- 
velt" — and  again  Fenton  was  irritated  by  the  ap 
parent  sincerity  of  her  tone.  "She's  counting  on 
you.  You're  to  have  my  rooms.  I'm  off  to  Lenox 
on  Monday.  Boyd  writes  that  everything's 
ready.  My  little  girl  will  be  there  from  school." 

Georgina  looked  at  her  in  surprise.  "I  didn't 
know  you  had  a  little  girl,"  she  said. 

"I'm  afraid  I  haven't.  She's — let  me  see — 
fourteen.  And  as  tall  as  I." 

Georgina  was  amazed  and  showed  it. 

The  servant  came  with  the  big  tray.  Mrs. 
Sylvester  took  coffee  and  a  cigarette.  "I'll  have 
this,  and  fly,"  she  said.  "Really  I  shouldn't  have 
come  at  all.  What's  the  matter,  Georgina?" 

"I  can't  get  used  to  the — the  little  girl."  It 
seemed  incredible  to  her  that  this  frank,  simple, 
young  woman,  whom  she  had  been  treating  as  a 
person  of  her  own  age,  and  had  been  regarding 
somehow  as  quite  as  inexperienced  as  herself,  had 
an  almost  grown  daughter.  "I  wish  you  hadn't 
told  me.  I  feel — afraid  of  you.  How  foolish  I 
must  have  been  seeming  to  you  all  along." 

298 


WHITE   ROSES  AND  RED 

Mrs.  Sylvester  sighed.  "Not  foolish,  but  wise 
— terribly  wise.  YouVe  got  the  wisdom  of  the 
world-that-ought-to-be,  while  Robert  and  I  have 
only  the  vulgar  folly  of  the  world-that-is-but- 
ought-not-to-be.  She's  by  far  the  wiser,  isn't  she, 
Robert?" 

"She  certainly  belongs  in  a  different  world," 
he  replied. 

"It's  one  from  which  poor  I  am  barred  for 
ever,"  she  said — and  he  thought  he  felt  the  sting 
of  sarcasm,  though  her  look  and  tone  were  pen 
sive.  "But  you,  my  dear  Robert" — she  turned 
to  Aunt  Martha,  who  had  just  come  out  of  the 
house — "it  isn't  fair,  is  it,  Miss  Chase?" 

"What?"  asked  Aunt  Martha. 

"When  I  first  knew  this  man  here,  I  was  eight 
years  old,  and  he  used  to  come  to  see  my  oldest 
sister " 

"Half-sister,"  corrected  Fenton  good-na 
turedly. 

"And  when  I'd  come  into  the  room  on  my  way 
down  to  my  early  dinner,  he'd  make  me  feel  com 
fortable  and  important  by  talking  to  me  as  if  I 

299 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

were  a  grown  person.     And  he  seemed  to  be  an 
old  man  then." 

"I  must  have  been  at  least  twenty,"  said  Fen- 
ton,  and  then  he  could  hardly  conceal  his  irrita 
tion  at  having  thus  shown  that  she  was  making 
him  wince. 

"Now,"  she  went  on,  "I'm  an  oldish  woman; 
while  he — well,  he  may  soon  be  suspecting  me  of 
plotting  to  marry  him  to  my  daughter." 

"Nonsense,"  said  Fenton  curtly. 

"Yes,  Robert,"  said  Mrs.  Sylvester,  laughing, 
"you  could  become  an  innocent  boy  again;  could 
marry  a  girl  any  time  in  the  next  four  or  five 
years ;  and  could  give  her  four  or  five  or  six  years 
of  invaluable  experience.  And  then  you  could 
pass  away,  leaving  her  a  young  widow."  She 
rose  and  turned  to  Georgina.  "Good-bye,  little 
girl.  Is  everything  over  between  us,  now  that 
you've  found  me  out?" 

Georgina  tried  to  protest.  But  the  last  ten 
minutes  had  put  her  into  a  whirl  of  doubts  and 
uncertainties  about  this  new  friend.  "Oh,  no," 
she  said.  "Oh,  no — not  that." 

300 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

Mrs.  Sylvester  shook  hands  with  Miss  Chase, 
who  was  icy,  and  with  Fenton,  who  was  surly. 
She  kissed  Georgina,  who  almost  shrank  from 
her.  At  the  door  she  paused  and  looked  back 
with  her  frankest,  most  youthful  smile.  "Good 
bye — good-bye  again,  Saint  Robert.  Don't  for 
get  to-morrow  morning,  Georgie."  And  she  was 
gone. 

The  silence  she  left  became  oppressive.  Miss 
Chase  broke  it  by  going  in  to  discover  the  cause 
of  a  crash  from  the  direction  of  the  dining  room. 

"I  wonder  why  I've  begun  to  distrust  Mrs. 
Sylvester,"  said  Georgina,  thoughtfully. 

Fenton  did  not  answer. 

uDo  you  know  I  half  suspect  she's  not  like  me, 
after  all,"  Georgina  went  on.  "She  makes  me 
think  of — there's  an  old  Italian  cabinet  up  in 
mother's  sitting  room.  And  it  has  about  a  dozen 
drawers  that  anyone  can  see.  It  looks  so  grace 
ful  and  simple,  and  you'd  say  there  wasn't  a  place 
about  it  where  you  could  hide  anything.  There 
aren't  even  keyholes  or  locks  of  any  kind." 

Fenton  was  smiling  satirically  into  vacancy. 
301 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

"But,"  continued  Georgina,  "it  has  more  than 
twenty  secret  drawers  and  little  hiding  places. 
And  every  once  in  a  while  mother  finds  a  new 
one.  Mrs.  Sylvester " 

"Is  like  that  cabinet,  you  think?"  Fenton  said, 
as  she  paused. 

"To-day  it  seems  to  me  so.  Yet — I  can't  help 
liking  her." 

Fenton  looked  at  her  curiously. 

"I  like  that  old  Italian  cabinet  better  than  the 
most  beautiful  ordinary  desk  I  ever  saw." 

Fenton  slowly  looked  away  as  her  eyes  were 
about  to  meet  his. 

"It  fascinates  me,"  she  went  on,  "and  so  does 
she." 

"Still  you'd  rather  be  as  you  are?"  he  asked 
absently. 

"I  couldn't  be  any  other  way,"  she  replied  sim 
ply. 

"No  secret  places,  no  quicksands,  no  pitfalls, 
no  surprises,  no  tricks,  no  sharp  turns,  no  arts." 

She  laughed  uneasily.  "That  sounds  dull,"  she 
said.  "But  I  suppose  I'm  like  that." 

302 


WHITE   ROSES  AND  RED 

"Mrs.  Sylvester  envies  you,"  said  Fenton. 

Georgina  flushed  with  pleasure. 

"Yes — envies  you.  I'm  sure  of  it.  She  en 
vies  you  because "  he  hesitated. 

"Why?"  she  asked  eagerly. 

His  face  clouded.  "Because  your  time  purse 
is  overflowing  with  the  wonderful  coins  of  youth, 
each  of  them  an  incredible  fortune  in  itself.  Your 

purse    is    full,    while    hers "      He    laughed 

cynically. 

"It's  full,  too,"  she  said. 

"It  looks  full  the  way  she  holds  it."  He  was 
silent  for  a  moment,  then,  with  an  impatient  ges 
ture  :  "But  let's  not  talk  of  youth,  or  think  of  it. 
I  want  to  forget.  I  want  you  to  help  me  forget." 

Georgina  colored  and  hid  her  eyes  under  their 
lids  and  long  lashes.  She  wouldn't  for  worlds 
have  let  him  see  Jthe  joy,  which  the  sudden  leap 
of  her  heart  had  shot  up  into  them.  But  he  saw 
that  she  misunderstood  him,  and  went  on  care 
lessly,  in  the  tone  of  a  grown  person  to  a  child: 
"I've  got  less  than  a  week,  you  know.  And  then 
you'll  be  free  to  go  back  to  your  boys." 

303 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

On  Saturday  morning  Mrs.  Sylvester  rode  at 
a  canter  into  the  Bristow  grounds,  and  reined  her 
horse  in  front  of  a  bench  where  Fenton  was 
seated  alone,  reading  the  newspapers.  "Good 
morning,"  she  said.  "Where's  Georgina?" 

"She  went  away  half  an  hour  ago  to  meet 
you,"  he  replied,  rising  with  an  effort. 

"Please  don't,"  she  said,  and  dismounted. 
"I'm  in  luck.  I  wanted  to  talk  to  you  alone.  So 
I  took  crossroads  to  escape  Georgina — poor 
child!" 

She  stood  with  her  arm  along  her  horse's  neck. 
He  bit  his  lips,  impatient  at  himself  for  having 
to  struggle  to  conceal  his  wild  longing  to  take  her 
in  his  arms,  to  kiss  again  and  again  that  fair, 
subtle  face,  those  eyes  that  could  reveal  such 
depths  of  emotion,  yet  always  veiled  the  heart 
of  her  mystery.  "I  want  to  talk  to  you  about 
her,"  she  went  on. 

"About  Georgina?"  he  asked,  his  tone  suggest 
ing  the  very  mildest  curiosity.  "Won't  you  sit? 
I'm  sure  the  bridle  is  long  enough." 

"Yes,  about  Georgina,"  she  said,  seating  her- 
3°4 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 


self  and  holding  to  the  extreme  end  of  the  reins. 
"Are  you  going  to  the  Westervelts',  day  after  to 
morrow?" 

"No — I'm  going  to  town,"  he  replied. 

"And  then  to  the  Westervelts'  ?" 

"Perhaps.     Yes— I  think  so." 

She  gave  a  sigh  of  relief.  "That  makes  it  so 
much  easier  for  me  to  be  frank." 

He  smiled  faintly.  He  knew  what  "frank" 
meant  when  Virginia  used  it. 

"Georgina  loves  you,"  she  continued.  "And 
I — Robert,  I  want  you  to  marry  her." 

He  looked  at  her  narrowly.  She  was  looking 
at  him,  but  he  did  not  let  her  see  how  she  had 
cut  into  him.  "Really?"  he  said  cheerfully. 
"Thank  you." 

"You  say  that  lightly,"  she  went  on,  with  seri 
ous  eyes  upon  him,  "but  I  mean  it.  The  first  day 
I  came  here  I  saw  that  you  and  she  were — were 
intended  for  each  other.  And  I  have  seen  a  good 
deal  of  her  to  make  sure.  She  is  just  the  wife 
for  you — ingenuous,  innocent,  so  good  and  so  de 
voted.  And  her  youth  will  be  so  stimulating  to 

305 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

you.    As  we  grow  older  we  need  youth  about.    It 
keeps  us  young,  in  heart  at  least." 

"Certainly  an  attractive  picture/'  he  said 
amusedly.  He  was  compelled  to  admire  the  in 
genuity  with  which  she  searched  out  and  found 
every  joint  in  his  armor.  He  knew  her  too  well 
not  to  feel  sure  it  was  all  a  ruse.  Yet  there  was 
just  room  for  doubt.  He  could  not  look  calmly 
at  this  problem  where  so  much  was  at  stake  for 
him.  So  much?  Everything!  The  only  woman 
who  had  ever  made  him  feel  that  the  more  she 
gave  the  more  she  withheld;  the  only  woman 
who  had  never  wearied  him.  His  keenest  inter 
est  in  life;  his  one  remaining  keen  interest  in  life. 
If  she  was  merely  pretending  to  urge  Georgina 
on  him,  as  he  believed,  and  if  she  should  try  to 
brush  aside  the  pretence  and  establish  again  the 
old  relations  which  Georgie  had  interrupted,  he 
might  lose  her  altogether,  this  woman  whom  he 
had  held  for  ten  years  only  by  the  same  means 
by  which  she  had  held  him — by  creating  for  her 
an  atmosphere  of  uncertainty,  so  that  she  never 
felt  sure  how  much  he  loved  her  or  how  long  he 

306 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 


would  love  her.  No,  he  must  watch  and  wait. 
He  must  see  just  what  this  crisis  was  before  he 
tried  to  meet  it. 

"Yes,  she  will  make  you  an  ideal  wife.  And" 
— she  smiled  as  if  she  were  trying  to  take  the  gall 
from  a  cruel  truth — "you  will  soon  need  some 
one  to  look  after  you,  my  dear  Robert.  A  man 
does  as  he  gets  older." 

He  winced  exaggeratedly.  "Ouch!"  he  ex 
claimed,-  with  a  good-humored  laugh.  "That 
hurts !  But — you  are  right,  my  friend.  Thank 
you  for  being  so  thoughtful  for  me."  And  he 
gave  her  a  look  of  genuine  gratitude,  as  if  she 
had  made  easy  what  he  had  feared  would  be  an 
embarrassing  situation.  "Another  woman,  even 
if  she  had  ceased  to  care  especially,  would  have 
had  a  sort  of  dog-in-the-manger  jealousy.  But 
you — you  always  were  wonderful." 

She  paled  a  little  before  this  praise,  and  could 
not  look  at  him,  though  she  was  trying  hard  to 
turn  her  face  toward  his.  "You  forgot — very 
quickly,"  she  couldn't  help  saying.  Then  she 
hastened  to  correct  this:  "But — no  matter.  I 

307 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

am  glad  that  you  have  found "  She  did  not 

finish. 

"Found— what?"  he  asked. 

"Georgina,"  she  replied.  And  she  rose  and 
flung  the  bridle  over  her  horse's  neck.  "No — 
no — don't  rise.  I  can  manage  it  beautifully." 
And  she  stood  on  the  bench  and  gracefully  sprang 
into  the  saddle.  From  this  height  she  looked 
down  at  him.  "When  two  people  have  been — 
what  weVe  been  to  each  other,  it  would  be  pitiful 
if  they  showed  themselves  mean  and  small  when 
the — the  end  came.  You  couldn't  be  small 
enough  to  be  sorry  the  woman  you've  cared  for 
could  let  you  go  without  a  heartache."  She 
looked  dreamily  into  the  distance,  stroking  her 
horse's  mane.  "If  I  could  bring  back  the  past — 
but  I  can't — we  can't.  And  Mildred  is  growing 
up  and  fills  a  larger  and  larger  place  in  my  life. 
And  I'll  always  have  her.  When  a  daughter  mar 
ries  her  mother  doesn't  lose  her."  She  gave  him 
a  wan  smile. 

He  was  standing,  his  physical  pain  forgotten. 
"Are  you  doing  this  to  teach  me  a  lesson?"  he 

308 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

said,  between  his  clenched  teeth.      "Or,  do  you 
mean  it,  Virginia?" 

As  he  advanced  toward  her,  she  backed  the 
horse.  "Good-bye,"  she  said.  "Good-bye,  Saint 
Robert" — and  she  was  off  at  a  canter.  His  im 
pulse  was  to  order  a  carriage  and  follow  her  to 
the  Westervelts'.  But  the  counsels  of  experience 
prevailed.  "If  she  meant  it,"  he  concluded,  "to 
urge  her  would  be  folly.  If  she  didn't  mean  it, 
to  urge  her  would  put  me  in  her  power;  and  I 
know  what  it  means  for  a  woman  to  be  certain 
of  a  man  of  my  age.  If  she  isn't  sure  whether 
she  meant  it  or  not,  to  urge  her  would  be  to  de 
cide  her  against  me.  At  any  cost  I  must  wait." 


309 


VII 

FENTON  was  silent,  and  seemed  morose 
at    luncheon    and    afterward    on    the 
veranda  with  Bristow,  Miss  Chase,  and 
Georgina.     "I've  had  irritating  news,"  he  volun 
teered  in  apology.     "I  hope  you" — he  included 
them  all  by  a  glance,  then  addressed  Miss  Chase 
— "won't  be  as  cheerful  over  part  of  it  as  I'm 
afraid  you'll  be.     I  must  go  to  town  to-morrow 
afternoon." 

Georgina's  fluttering  hand  had  to  set  down  the 
coffee  cup  and  steady  the  other  in  her  lap.  Miss 
Chase's  kind,  thin,  old  face  became  funereal. 
Bristow  was  the  only  one  of  the  three  able  to 
speak  on  the  instant.  "Rubbish,  Fenton!"  he 
protested.  "You're  not  nearly  well.  What  have 
we  neglected  that  you're  treating  us  this  way?" 

"You  must  give  longer  notice  to  quit,  young 
man,"  said  Aunt  Martha,  after  a  nervous  glance 
toward,  rather  than  at,  her  niece. 

310 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

"Don't  make  it  harder  for  me  to  go  than  it  is 
now,"  he  interrupted,  almost  pleadingly.  The 
expression  of  Georgina's  face  had  overwhelmed 
him  with  sudden  shame  and  self-contempt.  "It's 
a  case  of  must.  And  I  have  to  go  to-morrow  so 
that  I'll  be  rested  enough  to  attend  to  some  busi 
ness  Monday  morning." 

The  blood  was  throbbing  and  singing  in 
Georgina's  ears',  and  a  mist  was  confusing  her 
brain.  "He's  going  away — going,  going,"  she 
was  repeating  over  and  over  to  herself.  "What 
shall  I  do?  What  shall  I  do?  He's  going— 
he!"  She  was  relieved  when  luncheon  was  over 
and  he  went  to  his  rooms.  It  gave  her  the 
chance  to  shut  herself  in.  She  tried  to  cry,  but 
could  not.  She  came  down  and  wandered  with 
the  dogs  among  the  shrubbery  in  front  of  the 
house.  She  was  in  full  view  of  his  windows,  but 
he  did  not  join  her.  She  did  not  go  up  until 
there  was  just  time  to  dress  for  dinner.  She  put 
on  her  best  dress — best  because  he  had  compli 
mented  it,  and  her  in  it,  with  what  was  for  him 
enthusiasm. 


WHITE   ROSES  AND  RED 

She  was  the  first  down,  and  roamed  from 
room  to  room,  always  within  sound  of  the  stair 
way.  But  he  was  the  last  to  descend  in  the  even 
ing.  In  evening  dress  he  was  always  at  his  best, 
for  then  he  displayed  in  its  full  attractiveness  the 
superficial  smartness  that  gave  him  his  distinction. 

All  through  dinner  she  kept  her  eyes  on  her 
plate.  If  she  lifted  them  they  could  no  more  help 
seeking  his  face  than  a  sunflower  can  help  turn 
ing  its  face  to  the  sun.  Even  her  unobservant 
father  saw  that  she  was  unhappy.  But  he,  think 
ing  of  Fenton  as  almost  one  of  his  contempora 
ries,  and  of  Georgina  as  still  a  baby,  frankly  spoke 
of  it:  uYou  see,  Fenton,  your  nurse  is  taking 
your  going  to  heart." 

Georgina  was  woman  enough  to  force  a  pale 
smile,  and  to  cover  with  fair  success  the  shock 
from  this  finger  rudely  pointing  at  her  anguish. 

"Indeed  I  do,"  she  murmured.  "I— we " 

But  she  could  not  trust  herself  to  speak. 

Fenton,  for  the  first  time  in  many  a  year,  could 
think  of  nothing  to  say  to  relieve  the  tension. 
The  dinner  would  have  been  a  series  of  painful 

312 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

interruptions  to  painful  silences,  had  not  the 
champagne  made  Bristow  voluble,  and  the  Wall 
Street  situation  given  him  a  subject  for  volubility. 
Afterward  he  and  Fenton  went  into  the  library 
to  smoke,  and  the  two  women  strolled  out  upon 
the  veranda.  No  sooner  had  they  settled  them 
selves  than  Miss  Chase  was  up  and  away.  And, 
through  her  contriving,  the  butler  presently  went 
to  Bristow  and  told  him  that  the  coachman 
wished  to  see  him  at  once. 

"Go  out  on  the  veranda,  Fenton,11  said  Bris 
tow  as  he  hastened  away.  "I'll  be  back  pres 
ently."  But  on  his  way  back,  Aunt  Martha, 
lying  in  wait,  drew  him  into  the  drawing-room 
for  dominoes.  Meanwhile  Fenton,  off  his  guard, 
had  gone  upon  the  veranda.  The  instant  he  saw 
Georgina  there  alone  he  recognized  the  "trap." 

But  this  "trap"  did  not  stir  his  cynicism.  He 
would  have  staked  his  life  that  Georgina  knew 
nothing  of  it.  Besides,  he  was  too  deep  in  self- 
loathing,  when  he  saw  her  face,  so  young,  so 
ethereally  beautiful  in  that  soft  romantic  light — 
so  wistful.  He  knew  that  he  was  not  without  re- 

313 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 


sponsibility  for  whatever  feeling  she  had  for  him. 
He  had  been  lonely,  had  been  attracted  by  her, 
had  been  enthralled — almost.  And  he  had — 
well,  he  had  not  denied  himself  the  pleasure  of 
making  himself  liked,  the  luxury  of  feeling  that 
he  was  liked.  And,  as  he  continued  to  look,  he 
again  saw  himself  as  he  once  was  or,  perhaps, 
as  he  once  vaguely  strove  to  be.  He  did  not  re 
gret  the  man  who  no  longer  either  was  or  was 
possible;  the  man  who  would  have  appreciated 
as  it  deserved  this  beauty  of  body  and  soul,  with 
out  those  subtleties  and  arts  that  blunt  the  senses 
they  make  keen.  No,  he  did  not  regret,  any 
more  than  the  epicure  regrets  the  lost  taste  for 
simple  food,  or  the  degenerate  the  lost  liking  for 
delicate  natural  perfumes.  But  he  felt  debased — 
yes,  debased,  though  unrepentant.  And  his  honor 
prompted  him  to  try  to  undo  what  he  saw  done 
there — "Though,  of  course,  she'll  get  over  it 
as  soon  as  she  goes  among  her  own  crowd 
again." 

The  moonbeams  were  sifting  upon  her  through 
the  foliage.     She  was  in  the  pale  blue  that  in 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

moonlight  seems  a  mysterious,  diaphanous  white. 
Her  eyes  looked  weirdly,  wonderfully  large,  and 
full  of  dreams  and  promises  of  those  delights 
that  youth  alone  can  give — or  receive.  He  seated 
himself  opposite  her  and  went  on  with  his  ciga 
rette,  his  face  in  the  dimness  beyond  the  moon's 
light.  She  spoke  first:  "You  really  aren't  going 
to-morrow  ?" 

"I  must,"  he  said,  in  the  friendliest  tone. 
"And  I  hope  the  boys  won't  make  you  forget  me 
wholly." 

"It's  more  likely  that  you'll  forget  me,"  she 
said,  too  agitated  to  reproach  herself,  as  she 
often  did,  for  being  able  to  think  of  and  say  only 
stupid  commonplaces,  when  she  most  wished  to 
appear  at  her  best  before  him. 

"Oh,  I'm  not  so  old  as  all  that,"  he  protested, 
mockingly.  "I've  some  memory  left." 

"Why  do  you  always  insist  on  your  age?  I — 
no  one — ever  thinks  of  it.  A  man  is — just  a 
man.  And  a  woman  likes  him  or  she  doesn't. 
Usually  she  doesn't  if  he's  young  and  silly." 

He  laughed  as  if  he  had  recalled  something 
315 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 


amusing.  "I  was  thinking,"  he  said,  "of  the  first 
time  I  saw  you." 

"At  the  ball?" 

"Oh,  dear,  no.  We'd  been  acquainted  for 
years  then.  It  was  when  you  were  three  years 
old  or  thereabouts.  You  were  taking  the  air 
with  your  mother,  and  she  had  the  coachman 
draw  up  to  the  curb  so  that  she  could  invite  me 
to  dinner." 

She  made  a  swift  calculation  and  winced  visi 
bly.  Bad  as  his  story  was,  the  truth  was  worse. 
She  knew  it  was  not  she  he  had  seen,  but  her 
brother,  now  in  Europe  on  his  wedding  journey! 
Georgina  caught  her  breath- — it  sounded  very 
like  a  half-suppressed  sob.  "I  don't  care!"  she 
exclaimed,  her  eyes  searching  longingly  into  the 
dimness  for  his  face.  "You're  not  old,  and  you'll 
never  seem  old  to  me." 

"Thanks,"  he  said,  with  raillery.  "You're 
very  consoling." 

"I  suppose  you  say  those  things  about  your 
age  to  let  me  know  how  foolish  and  childish  I 
seem  to  you,"  she  said,  despondently. 

316 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 


"Childish — that  is,  very,  very  much  of  a 
child." 

She  leaned  forward  and  looked  earnestly  to 
ward  him:  "Am  I  so  dreadfully  tiresome  to 
you?" 

"What  a  funny  child!  Of  course  you  aren't; 
IVe  been  very  happy  here.  Several  times  IVe 
almost  forgotten  the — abyss  between  us." 

"Don't  say  that — please."  She  was  playing 
what  seemed  to  her  a  game  of  life  and  death. 
And  when  one  plays  that  game  in  youth,  one 
does  not  pause  to  think  how  one's  words  sound. 

He  rose  and  half  leaned,  half  sat  upon  the  rail 
ing  near  her.  "Yes — impassable,"  he  repeated, 
in  the  most  honest,  most  earnest  tone  he  had  used 
in  many  a  year.  "Five  years  from  now  I  shall 
begin  to  be  visibly  old — at  least  oldish.  But 
more  than  the  outside,  there's  the  inside.  I'm 
older  far  than  my  years  there,  my  dear.  I'm  old 
and  tired  and  jaded.  My  ideals  are  gone;  my 
enthusiasms  are  dead — and  buried — and  forgot 
ten.  You  raised  the  poor  pale  ghosts  of  them 
for  a  few  minutes  with  the  magic  of  your  youth. 

317 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

But  they  vanished,  and — I  only  feel  the  older  for 
having  seen  them." 

She  was  resting  her  elbow  on  the  railing,  her 
face  against  her  hand.  She  shook  her  small  head 
slowly,  the  lights  and  shadows  shifting  fascinat 
ingly  in  her  loosely  bound  hair.  "Please  don't 
talk — that  way — about  yourself — to  me." 

Her  earnestness,  her  beauty,  the  soft  white 
ness  of  her  bare  arms  and  shoulders,  that  subtle 
curve  of  throat  and  chin,  which  vanishes  even 
with  the  advance  of  youth  itself,  as  the  climax  of 
the  beauty  of  the  dawn  vanishes  even  when  the 
day  is  not  yet  born — before  these  a  sense  of  her 
youth,  of  his  oldness  swept  over  him.  He  felt 
like  a  man  who  has  been  robbed  at  life's  banquet, 
and  is  flung  out  to  stare  hungrily  in  through  the 
windows.  This  for  the  moment,  and  it  made  him 
say:  "Please — please  let's  not  talk  of  it.  If  you 
only  knew  how  bitter  and  wretched  it  makes  me, 
to  look  at  you  and  think — that  my  youth  is  gone." 

Her  breath  came  fast  and  her  eyes  were  bril 
liant.  "Oh,  why  will  you  say  those  things? 
Can't  you  see  that " 

318 


WHITE   ROSES  AND  RED 

"Yes,  I  can  see,"  he  interrupted.  "And  I'm 
not  so  base  as — well,  as  I  might  be.  No — no — 
this  is  all  false.  Good  God!  what  am  I  saying? 
And  I  wanted  to  be  honest  with  you." 

She  covered  her  face  for  an  instant,  then  with 
out  saying  good  night  or  any  other  word,  with 
out  looking  toward  him,  she  slipped  from  the 
moonlight  into  the  dimness  and  stole  noiselessly 
away. 

"Why,  where's  Georgie?"  inquired  Bristow, 
coming  to  the  window  a  few  minutes  later. 

"She  got  tired  of  my  prosing,"  said  Fenton 
carelessly,  "and  went  to  bed." 

Bristow  laughed.  "You're  getting  old,  Fen- 
ton,  not  to  be  able  to  detain  a  girl  on  such  a  night 
as  this,  with  not  another  man  about" 


319 


VIII 

IN  the  unimaginative  daylight  it  struck  Fen- 
ton  at  once  that  he  had  been  thoroughly 
ridiculous.  "Senile  folly!"  he  muttered, 
as  he  was  shaving.  But  the  scourge  did  not 
touch  his  vanity,  because  the  face  he  was  shaving 
had  not  a  trace  of  real  age  in  it — even  his  throat 
under  his  chin  looked  less  than  forty,  anyhow. 
Georgina  did  not  come  down  until  lunch  time, 
but  he  was  still  so  disgusted  with  himself  for 
taking  the  matter  seriously  that  he  had  some  dif 
ficulty  in  not  looking  frankly  sheepish  before  her. 
She  was  pale  and  there  was  darkness  and  heavi 
ness  in  her  eyelids  and  under  her  eyes.  But  she 
was  composed  and  treated  him  with  unaffected 
friendliness  that  had  no  restraint  in  it.  "She 
looks  as  if  she  had  grown  up  overnight,"  he 
thought,  "and  it's  very  becoming  to  her.  She's 
going  to  make  a  very  interesting  woman  some 
day." 

320 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

Not  until  he  was  saying  good-bye  did  he  sus 
pect  that  the  quietness  was  only  on  the  surface. 
Then  her  hand  felt  cold  as  it  lay  in  his  and  her 
paleness  became  death-like.  "Wonder  if  she's 
going  to  make  a  scene,"  he  thought  with  some 
uneasiness.  Suddenly,  as  if  against  her  will,  she 
lifted  her  eyes  to  his — gave  him  a  look  which 
filled  him  with  a  sort  of  terror.  All  the  way  to 
the  station,  at  intervals  on  the  way  to  New  York, 
that  look  haunted  him.  "What  did  it  mean?" 
he  said.  "I  never  saw  anything  like  that  before." 
But  his  nature  had  been  trained  through  all  those 
years  to  feel  and  to  understand  only  the  emotions 
that  can  survive  and  thrive  in  an  atmosphere  of 
selfishness.  "She's  a  strange  child!"  he  said,  and 
that  was  all  he  could  make  of  it. 

He  settled  himself  in  his  house  in  New  York 
as  comfortably  as  the  heat  and  the  loneliness  per 
mitted.  It  was  not  until  Friday  that  his  patience 
was  rewarded.  In  Friday  morning's  mail  came 
the  letter  from  Lenox:  "So,  my  dear,  you  didn't 

go  to  Mrs.  W 's  after  all.  Perhaps  I  was 

too  hasty  in  deciding  that  you  needed  a  perma- 

321 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

nent  nurse.  Why  should  you  stay  on  in  town 
when  you  might  be  here?" 

There  was  a  smutch  of  red  on  the  paper,  and 
after  it  this  postscript:  'That  red  came  from 
my  cheek — the  first  time  IVe  ever  had  to  do 
such  a  thing.  Please  come " 

Then  a  second  postscript:  "You  ought  to  be 
ashamed  of  yourself  about  G.  If  you  could  have 
heard  her  talk  of  you!  Really  I  think  it'll  take 
her  at  least  three  months  to  recover  from  you — 
entirely.  It's  lucky  for  us  women  that  most  of  us 
learn  our  lesson  while  we're  young,  when  broken 
hearts  heal  as  easily  as  broken  bones.  How  are 
your  bones?" 

Such  a  complete  surrender  astonished  him. 
"But  then  few  people  have  real  courage,"  he  re 
flected  philosophically,  now  that  he  was  easy  in 
his  mind.  And  he  told  his  valet  to  pack  and  to 
get  the  tickets  for  Lenox. 

But  instead  of  going  to  Lenox  the  next  morn 
ing,  he  took  a  train  up  the  Hudson.  And  at  three 
o'clock  he  was  driving  up  the  entrance  to  the 
Bristow  house.  He  asked  Burke  to  find  out 

322 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

whether  Miss  Georgina  would  see  him,  and  was 
shown  into  the  cool  dusk  of  the  drawing-room. 
He  stood  as  she  entered;  the  look — that  haunt 
ing,  terrifying  look  which  had  compelled  him  to 
come  there — was  not  in  her  eyes  now,  and  he  felt 
as  if  the  spell  it  had  cast  over  him  was  broken. 
"What  am  I  doing  here?"  he  wondered,  and  he 
had  a  preposterous  impulse  to  bolt.  They  shook 
hands,  and  she  seated  herself.  He  stood  before 
her,  undecided  whether  to  say  the  words  he  had 
come  to  say.  Now  he  was  getting  used  to  the 
faint  light;  now  he  could  see  her  face  quite  dis 
tinctly,  could  see  a  look  in  it  that  made  him  think 
of  a  white  rose  suddenly  blighted  in  the  heydey 
of  its  summer  splendor.  "I  came  to  say,"  he 
began — "Georgie,  will  you  marry  me?" 

She  looked  steadily  at  him,  and  her  eyes 
seemed  to  see  into  his  very  mind.  "Do  you  love 
me?"  she  asked  gravely. 

His  eyes  shifted.  "I  offer  you  the  best  I  have 
to  give,"  he  replied. 

"Do  you  love  me?"  she  repeated. 

"There  is  a  woman  who  can  never  be  any  more 
323 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

to  me  than  she  now  is,"  he  said  slowly.  "Any 
more — nor  any  less." 

"Then  you  do  not  love  me." 

UI  do  not  love  anyone,"  he  answered.  "I  had 
a  friend  once  who  had  the  morphine  habit.  IVe 
seen  him  sit  for  hours  staring  at  the  bottle  before 
him.  And  IVe  never  seen  such  an  expression  as 
he  used  to  have.  And  he  would  talk  ramblingly 
to  it — reproaches,  curses.  He'd  shake  his  fists 
and  grind  his  teeth.  And  once,  when  I  was  try 
ing  to  reason  with  him  about  his  habit,  I  took 
hold  of  the  bottle  without  thinking  what  I  was 
doing.  He  screamed  and  snatched  it,  and  gave 
me  a  look  of  hate "  Fenton  laughed  with 
out  mirth,  but  with  a  certain  amount  of  self-con 
sciousness. 

"Then  you  do  not  love  me,"  repeated  Geor- 
gina — not  an  inquiry,  but  an  assertion — made 
dispassionately. 

"I  can  never  again  give  anyone  what  you 
would  call  love." 

"What  have  I  ever  said  or  done,"  she  said 
evenly,  "to  make  you  think  so  poorly  of  me? 
No,  of  course,  you  don't  understand — what  I've 

324 


WHITE  ROSES  AND  RED 

been  feeling  and  thinking  since  Saturday.  I'm 
not  the  same  person."  She  put  her  hand  on  her 
bosom.  "Something  has  died  here." 

Her  eyes  flashed  at  his  expression  and  she 
stood  up.  "Don't  pity  me!"  she  exclaimed. 
"Don't  you  dare  pity  me!  I  don't  suffer,  and  it 
wasn't  you  that  killed  it — it  was  I !  It  will  never 
trouble  me  again."  She  smiled  mournfully  and 
put  out  her  hand.  "Good-bye,"  she  said,  and 
left  the  room. 

He  stood  astounded.  "What  does  she  mean?" 
he  said.  And  he  repeated  it,  sometimes  half 
aloud,  every  few  minutes  all  the  way  back  to 
New  York.  "A  strange  woman!"  And  that 
was  the  farthest  he  ever  got  into  her  mystery. 

He  took  the  train  for  Lenox  the  next  morn 
ing — after  reviewing  the  advantages  and  disad 
vantages  of  the  various  places  he  might  go  to, 
and  deciding  that,  on  the  whole,  Lenox  offered 
the  fewest  disadvantages.  So  far  as  Mrs.  Syl 
vester  was  concerned,  he  felt  like  a  man  who  is 
invited  to  turn  from  the  study  of  the  mystery  of 
a  universe  to  unravel  an  acrostic  on  the  back 
page  of  a  country  weekly. 

325 


i 


IX 

day  Georgina  took  the  veil  her 
father  sat  alone  all  day  in  front  of 
the  open  fire  in  his  office  downtown. 
His  secretary,  Ronald  Bright,  looked  in  now  and 
then,  but  did  not  venture  to  intrude  farther  than 
the  threshold.  When  the  darkness  of  evening 
began  to  gather,  Bright,  thinking  the  older  man 
might  be  asleep,  touched  him  on  the  shoulder. 
As  his  chiefs  face  turned  slowly  toward  him,  he 
saw  tears  in  his  eyes. 

"What  is  it,  sir,"  asked  the  secretary  impul 
sively.  "Can  I  help  you  in  any  way?" 

"Thank  you,  Ronald,"  the  old  man  slowly 
shook  his  head — Bright  had  never  before  thought 
of  him  as  an  old  man.  "Nothing — nothing." 
He  rose  painfully,  and  stood  with  shoulders 
drooped.  "To-day  I  lost  my  daughter — my  only 
daughter — forever!"  He  stretched  his  trem 
bling  hands  toward  the  fire.  "It  is  cold,"  he  said. 

326 

(i) 


STORIES   OF    RARE    CHARM    BY 

GENE  STRATTON- PORTER 

Hay  be  had  wherever  books  are  sold.      Ask  for  Grosset  and  Donlap's  list. 
THE  HARVESTER  ~ 
Illustrated  by  W.  L.  Jacobs 

"The  Harvester,"  David  Lancston,  is 
a  man  of  the  woods  and  fields,  who  draws 
his  living  from  the  prodigal  hand  of  Mother 
Nature  herself.  If  the  book  had  nothing  in 
it  but  the  splendid  figure  of  this  man,  with 
his  sure  grip  on  life,  his  superb  optimism, 
and  his  almost  miraculous  knowledge  of 
nature  secrets,  it  would  be  notable.  But 
when  the  Girl  comes  to  his  "Medicine 
Woods,"  and  the  Harvester's  whole  sound, 
healthy,  large  outdoor  being  realizes  that 
this  is  the  highest  point  of  life  which  has 
come  if  him  — there  begins  a  romance* 
troubled  and  interrupted,  yet  of  th<j  rarest  idyllic  quality. 

FRECKLES.       Decorations  by  E.  Stetson  Crawford 

Freckles  is  a  nameless  waif  when  the  tale  opens,  but  the  way  in 
which  he  takes  hold  of  life;  the  nature  friendships  he  forms  in  the 
great  Limberlost  Swamp;  the  manner  in  which  everyone  who  meets 
him  succumbs  to  the  charm  of  his  engaging  personality;  and  his  love- 
story  with  "The  Angel"  are  full  of  real  sentiment. 

A  GIRL  OF  THE  LIMBERLOST. 
Illustrated  by  Wladyslaw  T.  Brenda. 


sheer  beauty  of  her  soul,  and  the  purity  of  her  vision,  she  wins  from 
barren  and  unpromising  surroundings  those  rewards  of  high  courage. 
It  is  an  inspiring  story  of  a  life  worth  while  and  the  rich  beauties 
of  the  out-of-doors  are  strewn  through  all  its  pages. 

AT  THE  FOOT  OF  THE  RAINBOW. 

Illustrations  in  colors  by  Oliver  Kemp.    Design  and  decorations  by 
Ralph  Fletcher  Seymour. 

The  scene  of  this  charming,  idyllic  love  story  is  laid  in  Central 
Indiana.  The  story  is  one  of  devoted  friendship,  and  tender  self- 
sacrificing  love;  the  friendship  that  gives  freely  without  return,  and 
the  love  that  seeks  first  the  happiness  of  the  object.  The  novel  is 
brimful  of  the  most  beautiful  word  painting  of  nature,  and  its  pathos 
and  tender  sentiment  will  endear  it  to  all. 

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GROSSET&  DUN  LAP'S 

DRAMATIZED    NOVELS 

THE  KIND  THAT   ARE   MAKING   THEATRICAL   HISTORY 
May  be  had  wherever  books  ara  sold.       Ask  for  Grosset  &  Dunlap't  Hat 

WITHIN  THE  LAW.     By  Bayard  Veiller  &  Marvin  Dana. 
illustrated  by  Wm.  Charles  Cooke. 

This  is  a  novelization  of  the  immensely  successful  play  which  ran 
*or  two  years  in  New  York  and  Chicago. 

The  plot  of  this  powerful  novel  is  of  a  young  woman's  revengs 
directed  against  her  employer  vrho  allowed  her  to  be  sent  to  prison 
for  three  years  on  a  charge  of  theft,  of  which  she  was  innocent. 

WHAT  HAPPENED  TO  MARY.     By  Robert  Carlton  Brown, 
illustrated  with  scenes  from  the  play. 

This  is  a  narrative  of  a  yoing  and  innocent  country  girl  who  ia 
suddenly  thrown  into  the  very  heart  of  New  York,  "the  land  of  her 
dreams,"  where  she  is  exposed  to  all  sorts  of  temptations  and  dangers. 

The  story  of  Mary  is  being  told  in  moving  pictures  and  played  in 
theatres  all  over  the  world. 

THE  RETURN  OF  PETER  GRIMM.      By  David  Belasco. 
Illustrated  by  John  Rae, 

This  is  a  novelization  of  the  popular  play  in  which  David  War, 
field,  as  Old  Peter  Grimm,  scored  such  a  remarkable  success. 

The  story  is  spectacular   and  extremely  pathetic  but  withals 
powerful,  both  as  a  book  and  as  a  play. 
THE  GARDEN  OF  ALLAH.    By  Robert  Hichens.7 

This  novel  is  an  intense,  glowing  epic  of  the  great  desert,  sunlit 
barbaric,  with  its  marvelous  atmosphere  of  vastness  and  loneliness, 

1 1  is  a  book  of  rapturous  beauty,  vivid  in  word  painting.    The  play 
has  been  staged  with  magnificent  cast  and  gorgeous  properties. 
BEN    HUR.    A  Tale  of  the  Christ.    By  General  Lew  Wallace. 

The  whole  world  has  placed  this  famous  Religious-Historical  Ro 
mance  on  a  height  of  pre-eminence  which  no  other  novel  of  its  time 
has  reached.  The  clashing  of  rivalry  and  the  deepest  human  passions, 
the  perfect  reproduction  of  brilliant  Roman  life,  and  the  tense,  fierce 
atmosphere  of  the  arena  have  kept  their  deep  fascination.  A  tre 
mendous  dramatic  success. 

BOUGHT  AlSiD  PAID  FOR.     By  George  Broadhurst  and  Arthui 
Hornblow.          Illustrated  with  scenes  from  the  play. 

A  stupendous  arraignment  of  modern  marriage  which  has  created 
an  interest  on  the  stage  that  is  almost  unparalleled.  The  scenes  aro  laid 
in  New  York,  and  deal  with  conditions  among  both  the  rich  and  poor. 

The  interest  of  the  story  turns  on  the  day-by-day  developments 
which  show  the  young  wife  the  price  she  has  paid. 

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GROSSET  &    DUNLAP'S 

DRAMATIZED  NOVELS 

Original,  sincere  and  courageous — often  amusing — the 
kind  that  are  making  theatrical  history. 

MADAME  X.    By  Alexandra  Bisson  and  J.  W.  McCon- 
aughy.      Illustrated    with    scenes   from    the    play. 
A  beautiful  Parisienne  became  an  outcast  because  her  hus 
band  would  not  forgive  an  error  of  her  youth.    Her  love  for 
her  son  is  the  great  final  influence  in  her  career.    A  tremen 
dous  dramatic  success. 

THE  GARDEN  OF  ALLAH.    By  Robert  Hichens. 

An  unconventional  English  woman  and  an  inscrutable 
stranger  meet  and  love  in  an  oasis  of  the  Sahara.  Staged 
this  season  with  magnificent  cast  and  gorgeous  properties. 

THE  PRINCE  OF  INDIA.    By  Lew.  Wallace. 

A  glowing  romance  of  the  Byzantine  Empire,  presenting 
th  extraordinary  power  the  siege  of  Constantinople,  and 
lighting  its  tragedy  with  the  warm  underflow  of  an  Oriental 
romance.    As  a  play  it  is  a  great  dramatic  spectacle. 

TESS  OF   THE    STORM    COUNTRY.     By  Grace 
Miller  White.    Illust.  by  Howard  Chandler  Christy. 
A  girl  from  the  dregs  of  society,  loves  a  young  Cornell  Uni 
versity  student,  and  it  works  startling  changes  in  her  life  and 
the  lives  of  those  about  her.    The  dramatic  version  is  one  of 
the  sensations  of  the  season. 

YOUNG    WALLINGFORD.      By  George    Randolph 

Chester.     Illust.  by  F.  R.  Gruger  and  Henry  Raleigh. 

A  series  of  clever  swindles  conducted  by  a  cheerful  young 

man,  each  of  which  is  just  on  the  safe  side  of  a  State's  prison 

offence.    As  "Get-Rich-Quick  Wallingford,"  it  is  probably 

the  most  amusing  expose  of  money  manipulation  ever  seen 

on  the  stage. 

THE  INTRUSION   OF  JIMMY.    By  P.  G.  Wode- 

house.    Illustrations  by  Will  Grefe. 
Social  and  club  life  in  London  and  New  York,  an  amateur 
burglary  adventure  and  a  love  story.    Dramatized  under  the 
title  of  "A  Gentleman  of  Leisure,"  it  furnishes  hours  of 
laughter  to  the  play-goers. 

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JOHN  FOX,  JR'S. 

STORIES  OF  THE  KENTUCKY  MOUNTAINS 
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THE  TRAIL  OF  THE    LONESOME  PINE.y 
Illustrated  by  F.  C.  Yohn.  f' 

,  The  "lonesome  pine"  from  which  the 
story  takes  its  name  was  "a  tall  tree  that 
stood  in  solitary  splendor  on  a  mountain 
top.  The  fame  of  the  pine  lured  a  young 
engineer  through  Kentucky  to  catch  the 
trail,  and  when  he  finally  climbed  to  its 
shelter  he  found  not  only  the  pine  but  the 
foot-prints  of  a  girl.  And  the  girl  proved 
to  be  lovely,  piquant,  and  the  trail  of 
these  girlish  foot-prints  led  the  young 
engineer  a  madder  chase  than  "the  trail 
of  the  lonesome  pine." 

SHEPHERD   OF   KINGDOM    COME 


THE    LITTLE 


illustrated  by  F.  C.  Yohn. 

This  is  a  story  of  Kentucky,  in  a  settlement  known  as  "King- 
uom  Come."  It  is  a  life  rude,  semi-barbarous;  but  natural 
and  honest,  from  which  often  springs  the  flower  of  civilization. 

"  Chad."  the  "little  shepherd"  did  not  know  who  he  was  nor 
•whence  he  came — he  had  just  wandered  from  door  to  door  since 
early  childhood,  seeking  shelter  with  kindly  mountaineers  who 
gladly  fathered  and  mothered  this  waif  about  whom  there  was 
such  a  mystery — a  charming  waif,  by  the  way,  who  could  play 
the  banjo  better  that  anyone  else  in  the  mountains. 

A'KNIGHT  OF  THE    CUMBERLAND,  y 
Illustrated  by  F.  C.  Yohn. 

The  scenes  are  laid  along  the  waters  of  the  Cumberland* 
the  lair  of  moonshiner  and  f  eudsman.  The  knight  is  a  moon 
shiner's  son,  and  the  heroine  a  beautiful  girl  perversely  chris 
tened  "The  Blight"  Two  impetuous  young  Southerners'  fall 
under  the  spell  of  "The  Blight's  "  charms  and  she  learns  what 
a  large  part  jealousy  and  pistols  have  in  the  love  making  of  the 
mountaineers. 

Included  in  this  volume  is  "  Hell  fer-Sartain"  and  other 
stories,  some  of  Mr.  Fox's  most  «ntertaining  Cumberland  valley 
narratives. 

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